


The Other One

by Amoris



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Brother/Sister Incest, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-A Bitter Pill, Post-All That Remains, Romance, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-04-02 16:51:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4067428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amoris/pseuds/Amoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no hope for either of them, brother and sister both, and he does not know if he can pick up the pieces when he does not care if they ever come back together again. He is not ready yet. By the Maker, why did he come?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains spoilers up to **and** including "All That Remains". Please mind the tags and read at your own discretion.

_As you lay to die beside me_   
_On the morning that you came_   
_Would you wait for me?_   
_The other one would wait for me_

"Your Protector" - Fleet Foxes

 

**I.**

 

The night the news of Leandra comes, Carver drinks himself stupid on golden mead and memories. She would have been so proud.

He had been thinking of her, his beloved mother, the night the letter found its way to his hands, but that in itself was hardly strange. He is always thinking of her, mother and sisters all, they and a hundred other things to while away the time. There has been nothing but time for him up in the mountains, wintering in a crumbling outpost retaken from highwaymen after a little frostbite and a lot of bloodshed. In the months since, he's spent his days carrying timbers and driving nails, his mind consumed by the work, with no time to think or remember or regret – and _glad_ for it, gladto use his hands for more than knocking heads and killing darkspawn after more than half a year in the Deep Roads. By night, however, the wind through the pines can be a lonely, haunted, _living_ thing, and it's a cruel fate to be left to his thoughts.

Dark and ugly and mean, his thoughts. Resentful, and petulant as a child, and he is relieved that his sister is never there to see his mouth twisted in that way she said he had, and night after night he consoles himself with that meagre reassurance, and slowly each dawn comes anew, the days marching on to put his misery in the past where it belongs.

Then the news arrives and his mother is dead and there is no more hiding.

He sits by the fire in the great hall that night, his hunched and hulking form casting a daunting shadow against the stone, and he listens to the other men as they laugh and drink and dice. Word has spread, he knows, but he can't summon the will to care. The truth of the whole business bleeds out like washed ink, and _mother_ and _magic_ and _Marian_ are all hammer blows upon his heart, and with each strike Carver is reshaped, remade, and forged stronger.

A few of the other Wardens ask the name of his mother. Carver gives it, ashamed to speak it when he has failed her so, and he does not ask after theirs. Let them whisper; it bothers him not. All among them know what their oath has cost him, for all among them have paid its price time and again. His fellows in the hall leave him to his brooding, and raise a silent glass in her honour, for Wardens are men from all walks of life, and all men had mothers once.

Everything seems so distant then, the voices and the hearth and the mead. Carver drinks deep, grieves deeper, and watches the fire for hours, keeping his close watch as the logs warp and pop amidst a cloud of sparks, and slowly crumble to ash. His heart is lost in faraway Ferelden, seeking the safety of another night, another hearth, and a past that cannot be recaptured or repaired.

A father's words, a mother's touch. A sister on each side to keep him warm.

All gone now – all gone, but for motherless Marian _._

The night after the news came, he drinks as well, but it's not for the grief and it's not for the pain. That night is for his anger, white-hot and blinding, for everything that has come and gone, and all that cannot be undone. He drinks for his sisters, the dead one and the damned one, and all the memories that he cannot chase away. He weeps for them both, and his big hands cover his face to hide the shame of it, and all he can see through his wet, bleary eyes are little girls in linen dresses, running and laughing and calling his name.

He hates her then; she could have saved them.

He hates himself; he should have _stayed_.

The Maker can take his blighted blood ties, if _she_ is truly all that is left to him in the world. To the void with honour, with duty, with titles and crests and coin. Where was all her status and power when – _when –_

He once had sought to calm the tempest he felt stirring within himself, thrashing his sense and his pride with bitterness and doubt, but in his weakest moment, there is no escaping what has come to dwell in his heart and so he drowns himself with whiskey and goes numb 'til the blackness takes him, and he can't for the life of him remember her _name._

It's on his lips all the same when he wakes come morning, head pounding, stomach reeling.

He says it aloud only once, like trying to capture the last remnants of a dying dream, just before the world gives an almighty spin and he's on his knees retching into the basin.

 

-

 

The second letter comes a few weeks later.

He's in the mess hall when the post arrives; it's the first time the caravan has made it through in all the weeks since the last visit had stolen his mother away from him and what remained of his joy along with her. His head is down and he's intent on his breakfast when his name is called out, and Carver freezes for a moment because his gut tells him that it can't be right, the only person who had ever bothered to write to him was cut to pieces alone in the dark, and those left standing are nothing to him now.

He takes it anyway, because no matter how many times he tries to convince himself he doesn't care, he still wants to know what could be so bloody important, even if the news may very well have the power to kill what's left of him. He pockets the letter until he reaches the barracks where he's quartered, where he can suffer and swear in relative privacy. He doesn't recognize the wax or the seal, and the paper is stiff and officious; he feels quite the blundering ox just unfolding the damn thing.

_Maker –_

Carver sits down on his cot as he reads.

The letter is from Aveline – or at least, it's her heavy scrawl, easy to recognize even with the ink blotted and smeared, but there is a rhythm and an eloquence to her words that makes him think perhaps the dwarf had spent more than a little time pacing at her back reciting introductions as she penned it.

He reads it twice, and by the time he's done his jaw is clenched so tight his teeth begin to ache, and the words on the page blur together until he touches a hand to his forehead and closes his eyes, because nothing can be done to change what the letter says or what it means.

A deep tremor goes through him then, and his shoulders slump with burdens he'd long since thought he'd shaken off. It takes a good deal of goading to convince himself to stand, even more to force his legs to carry him, but once he is on his feet, it's as if he's moving in a trance, separate from himself, watching on from afar as he finds his commander, and says something more has happened in Kirkwall and he is going to need to take his leave, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

The city of chains rises out of the sea like a beacon, its ivory towers reaching toward the slate sky like the hands of an expectant child to an indifferent father; the Maker's gaze has never fallen on Kirkwall as it wallows in corruption and darkness, and it never will. Carver's faith has always been lacking, shaken long before his life had wound its twisted way toward Kirkwall, and the thought of the Maker's absence here does not put the fear and shame into him as it once might have done. Miserable with fatigue and cold, Carver presses on, and he spares not a moment to mourn the loss of his innocence and his faith.

The city gates are open wide and no one stops him as he passes through; a Grey Warden still casts a daunting shadow even now with the Blight from across the sea five years a memory, and it's his memories that push him forward and his memories that will him to turn back. Kirkwall is much as he remembers it, and this angers him to no end. He cannot be sad for this city. He is loathe to call this place his home, but all that remains of his family, his childhood, of his life before the Wardens is here, and as much as he wants to forget all they are to him, he cannot untangle himself so readily from the ties that bind. The streets are as familiar to him as the lines of his hands, as the scars on his skin that have all but become a part of him.

He has no difficulty finding his way to his sister's grand estate; his mother had pointed it out to him often enough during his short time here, Leandra finding any excuse to walk by when he'd taken her to market, her gentle hand upon his arm as they had idly shopped for things they could not afford.

Thinking of his mother, of what was, of what should have been, drives his steps faster, and sets his heart to pounding achingly in his throat. If his blinding fury does not force him forward, he worries he may just turn around and flee like the coward he fears himself to be.

The dooryard of his sister's house is blanketed with snow; no one has been out to sweep the steps in days, no one has come or gone. The Amell crest is all but disappeared beneath a veil of white; he swipes at it with a gloved hand, and the snow falls like sugar, swirling in the wind. He fords a drift that buries him almost to the tops of his boots and bangs unceremoniously on the door. At first, he is greeted with only silence. The passersby on the street watch him, shameless in their curiosity. In the dead of winter, even Hightown is starved for its entertainments, and he supposes a Grey Warden hammering on the front door of the upstart in their midst is too much for the likes of them. There will be talk. He regrets his rashness then, wishing he'd waited until after dark, but there is no time for such misgivings because soft footsteps sound from within and then the door is open and there is no turning back.

"May I help you, messere?"

The girl is elven, slight and frail and pale as a ghost, and she peers up at him through the gap in the door with the greenest, most trusting eyes he's ever seen. The sight of her is so unfamiliar, so unexpected that he forgets himself, forgets the ugliness and uncertainty that brought him here, and he's left stammering on the doorstep like a fool. The girl watches him with a bemused expression on her face; she's indecisive, he can tell, and she's beginning to fret at just what to do about him when a voice calls from behind her.

"No, no, tell whoever it is that we're not buying anything today, the mistress is not well. Close the door, Orana, and be done with it."

The girl makes to do as she's told and shut the door in his face but Carver puts a hand out, braces his arm and stops her, finally finding his way past the knot in his tongue. "I'm not selling anything," he says forcefully, and gives the door a bit of a push. "I've come to see my sister, damn it, now let me in." The girl jumps back and the door swings inward and Carver is left staring at the two of them there in the dimly lit entrance hall, a timid elf and an obstinate ginger dwarf, neither of whom he's ever seen before, neither of whom look like they belong. Their presence does not surprise him. Marian's always had a knack for disregarding convention.

"Sister?" the dwarf exclaims, his eyes going wide. "Master Carver, of course, of course! The good captain told us to expect you. And expect you we did, though it was somewhat sooner we had thought you'd be joining us. In fact, we were beginning to think you'd not come at all."

"Well, I'm here. Where is she?" Carver asks, taking off his gloves and flexing his frozen fingers. The elven girl has the gloves out of his hands before he can blink, flitting forward like a bird hopping about in the garden of a morning. He ignores her as best he can, looking past her into the parlour, where firelight dances on a plush red carpet. He half expects his sister to come out then, that blasted beast of a mabari bounding at her heels; Marian Hawke, the purveyor of dramatic entrances. "Marian!" he calls out, his irritation growing with every beat of his heart, with her absence, with her silence. "Sister!"

"Hush now, messere, be silent, I beg you," the dwarf says, holding up his hands. "My dear and poor mistress is not up to visitors. I've turned so many away–"

"What do you mean?" Carver snaps. The servant girl quails at the edge in his voice. "What's wrong with her?"

The dwarf looks distinctly uncomfortable, and wrings his hands together. "You've not spoken with the captain? Oh dear, she assured me – I'm at a loss, messere, I'd not expected to be the one to bear such grave tidings, and to a Grey Warden–"

Carver draws himself up. "Where is my sister?" he asks again, in a tone that brooks no argument. The dwarf flinches, but his hands drop to his side, and he shakes his head.

"Bedridden with guilt and grief," he says, his sorrow clear and sharp. "She sees no one. She rarely leaves her bedchamber. She eats little, does naught but sleep, messere, and her waking hours are consumed with weeping and darkness. This is why the captain sent for you. Did she not tell you in her letter?"

Carver is dumbstruck with the news, and it takes him a long moment to recover, his vision shifting in and out of focus as he stares into the parlour, the stone stairs that lead upward into deep, abiding shadows like draping cobwebs. "I didn't realize it was as bad as all that," he says, but even as the words leave him, he knows it for a lie. He had known. He'd known and refused to believe and now he'll pay for it and dearly, blundering blustering fool that he is. "It's been weeks since Mother–" He stops, unable to finish, unable to _say_...

"Six weeks," says the dwarf, his voice heavy with his own mourning, "six weeks and four days." Behind him, the girl gives an sniff into the back of her hand, excuses herself, and disappears through the doorway. The dwarf pays her no mind, and sighs. "Is there anything I can do for you, messere? There is a room prepared. As I said, we've been expecting you."

Carver shakes his head, numb with worry and doubt. He should not be here; he should not have come. Yet here he is, standing in her entrance hall and talking to her servants, knowing that she rests above him, lost and broken and entirely alone. The others should be here with dice and cards and wine, with stories and laughter and everything else they can give her and he cannot. The bloody elf should be here, like some damn avenging grace, to keep her and protect her as he has vowed to do.

It shouldn't be him left to clean up this mess.

It should never be him.

Carver puts a hand to his forehead to hide his traitorous eyes behind splayed fingers, to shield the welling of tears he cannot fight from those he does not trust to see his weakness. He is too weary, too broken himself, and there are long days ahead, and never-ending nights. There is no hope for either of them, brother and sister both, and he does not know if he can pick up the pieces when he does not care if they ever come back together again. He is not ready yet. By the Maker, why did he _come_?

"I'd best go see Aveline," he finally says with a sigh he hopes will take all the breath from him, end his existence and relieve him of his charge, but his body betrays him, and he breathes on and on and on. He tries to calm himself, gentle the storm that roils inside him; a lost cause if ever there was one. "Let her know I've come, and that I'll be back."

"Of course, messere," the dwarf says with a short bow. "Anything, anything."

Without another word, Carver leaves the estate, letting the door fall closed on the home he was never meant to know, and hurries out into the snow, rushing away from the suffocating pain caused by his last burden in this world, a sister so selfless, so selfish as to put all the world before her; a sister who is willing to save everyone but herself.


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

The Viscount's Keep is crowded, and the moment he enters Carver is mindful of the eyes on him, a lone Grey Warden stamping the snow from his boots. He is not his sister, who always waltzed in as if she owned the place, eyes ever upward and flashing their challenge at those who would tell her she did not belong. Carver is only himself, and once upon a time that meant being no one, ever in the shadow of those who walked before him. He is long finished wondering how it might have been different had he been born first; he is content with his place in the world. To be a Grey Warden is no small thing, no matter the path that led him there. He keeps his head up as he walks across the grand foyer, and all eyes he catches quickly skip away.

Aveline is in her office. She sits at her desk while Varric paces in front of it, and before Carver disrupts them and breaks the spell, he gets the distinct impression that this has become a familiar scene to those here often enough to see it, the two of them worrying away to nothing, the guard captain forcing herself to idleness and the dwarf wearing a furrow in the carpet with his expensive leather boots. But Carver knows the two of them well, and he is not captivated. He makes to take off his gloves, belatedly realizing he's no longer in possession of them. Shaking his head, he raps his knuckles against the door, bracing himself for what is about to come.

"Junior!" the dwarf greets him, a smile breaking the melancholy of his shadowed face. Aveline is quick to stand, chair rattling, her well-maintained armour only a whisper of leather and steel as she's on her feet, nimble as a cat.

"It's about bloody time," she says, but there is a smile on her face as well, one that does not reach her eyes. The pain he finds there is as dark and fathomless as the sea, yet even as the depths of mourning call to him, the captain is as restless as the waves beneath which her anguish hides. "Where have you been?" she demands. He is about to remind her that he is no longer required to answer to her, but he finds he cannot bring up such old grievances at a time like this. Perhaps he's grown; he thinks, somehow, it would be better for everyone if he has. So he only shrugs, helpless against their sorrow and despair, for there is no armour, no shield in this world against it.

"I came as soon as I got your letter."

"You shouldn't have waited for me to send it," Aveline rails, colour rising to her cheeks. "Your uncle wrote to you, didn't he? Told you what had happened? You should have –" She pauses then, draws in a deep breath to regain the composure she always holds so steadily, the self-control that has gotten away from her in this moment of revelation. She sinks back down into her chair, but her eyes never leave him. "You should have been here, Carver."

"Lay off the poor kid," Varric says gently, still smiling even as the captain glares at him, her eyes shooting sparks of warning. "I'm sure he came as soon as he was able. Grey Wardens aren't exactly known for taking vacations from – well, whatever it is they're doing lately."

"I'm here now," Carver says lamely, knowing it's no excuse, knowing she's right and he's been wrong all along.

"Yes, you are, and that's what matters," Varric agrees, as if it's something that requires his agreement, as if Carver is just an apparition haunting the doorway until the dwarf's approval gives him substance and purpose and brings him to life; ever the storyteller, pulling the strings of reality as easily as those in his mind. "You been up to the estate yet?"

Mutely, Carver nods.

"Did you see her?"

He shakes his head. There is nothing to tell them that they do not already know, and so he does not try. A ghost of a shadow flickers across the dwarf's face, showing that he understands Carver's plight more than any words could ever say, he who puts pen to paper and spins tales of such eloquence that the world weeps with joy and sorrow as he deems they should.

"Well, then you know," Varric says with a nervous chuckle, and he rubs a hand on the back of his neck, visibly discomfited, which Carver has never seen before and it troubles him far more than it should. "Listen, Junior, we've done everything we can think of to pull her out of this, but something's just not giving and I'm at a loss." Aveline clears her throat then, and he corrects himself with a hasty glance toward her, "We're all at a loss. Every single damned one of us."

"What about Fenris?" Carver asks, sneering as he chews on the elf's name with considerable distaste; simply saying it makes him want to spit on the floor, but he's certain Aveline would have his head for it and so he refrains. "The two of them were thick as thieves." Yet even as he speaks, neither Aveline or Varric will meet his eyes, and he realizes he's said something wrong, something terribly wrong, and he's been away too long to know any better. A silence stretches on then, brittle, dreadful, and every moment it lingers his imagination runs wild with worry and doubt and the bittersweet guilt of such untimely vindication. Damn, damn, _damn_...

It's Aveline who finally works up the courage to answer the questions in his eyes. "They've – _fallen out_ ," she says carefully and glances toward Varric, who at that moment has decided he'd rather look anywhere but at either of them. "And before you ask," Aveline stoutly continues, "no, we don't know what happened. It's none of our affair." At her use of such a consequential word, the dwarf flinches, but offers no insight, keeping his eyes trained firmly on the bookshelf and its offerings, which are undoubtedly as boring and predictable as the captain is herself.

Carver decides he has heard more than enough about his sister and her bloody elf. Aveline and Varric might very well have shouted the unpalatable truth at the tops of their voices for all the volumes their reluctance speaks. "So none of you've been able to bring her round," he says, folding his arms across his chest. "You've all tried your hand and failed. What makes you so sure I'll do any better?"

"You're her family," Aveline says with a shrug. "Who else is left?"

Carver keeps his mouth shut and stews. He vividly remembers a time when his sister had claimed these companions more of a family to her than he ever could be, her blood brother, he who has never known a day without her. Years of bitter rivalry and hard feelings will not simply dissipate because she needs him. Yet he cannot leave her to such a pathetic fate, no matter how she fights to suffer the weight of their mother's loss alone. She may yet push the entire world away, but he has always refused to follow her lead without question, without a fight, and he does not see why that should change now.

"And if she won't see me?" he wonders aloud, glaring at the both of them. At least they have the decency to look thoroughly uncomfortable at the trouble they've caused him, but their concern for his sister goes deeper than their respect for him. How very touching. "If she turns me away?"

"At least you will have tried," Aveline says, her face hard. "Which is more than you've done previously."

Carver flushes in his anger, his jaw tensing painfully as he refuses to rise to her bait. Varric, his back to both of them, groans. It's well known that Aveline has always seen too much, and said that much more, and there are those who would fault her for such honesty, Carver among them, but he has neither the will nor the desire to argue or care. "Be careful, Aveline," he warns, his voice low and even, surprised with himself for his level head even as he speaks the word. "You need me."

Aveline scoffs, but her expression softens somewhat, and behind all those freckles she looks almost sorry. "It's your sister that needs you, Carver," she says, and the edge is gone, "though Maker only knows I don't understand why."


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

He walks back to the estate in a daze, slow and sluggish, feet unable to keep up with the racing in his mind. The thick cobalt clouds he'd seen on the distant horizon when he'd arrived in the city have caught up with him, making good on their promise of snow; it catches in his hair and his eyelashes, and he makes no attempt to brush it away. It melts like cold kisses as he enters his sister's house, unannounced and unwelcome. The dwarf comes puffing in a moment too late, cheeks blazing with embarrassment; Carver asks after his sister as he hands over his heavy winter cloak.

"The same as ever, I'm afraid," says the dwarf, whose name Carver still does not know. Asking seems too much like caring when he does not want to be there, chasing after Marian like that damned hound of hers; he does not want his concession to be mistaken for concern over the mess she's gotten herself into, and so he doesn't ask. It helps him to keep a respectable distance, a false comfort if ever there was one, when all he wants is to be back where he belongs – any place but where he is. "Allow me to show you to your room, messere, so you might settle in," says the dwarf, as gently as soothing a spooked animal, as if he's read Carver's thoughts, afraid he might disappear like a ghost, like a wisp of smoke, and all the worrying and waiting will have come to nothing at all.

Silent as the ghost he is thought to be, Carver allows himself to be led into the house, and every step he takes is a chain to wrap around his neck, around his wrists and waist; spectral, tangible, his imaginary iron bonds heavy, so heavy, dragging him into an abyss from which he will not escape. The house is not as dark and dismal as it was before; in honour of guests, the lamps have been lit and the drapes opened wide, and the pale light of a winter afternoon drifts down from high windows, leaving everything grey and bereft of warmth. He tries to envision the history of this place, the blood of his family the mortar that holds every stone in place, his mother and his uncle as children, his long-dead and much-feared grandparents looming over everything like royalty, but all he can see are slavers, broken stones like spilled blood to stain every tainted memory. He's never had much of an imagination.

"Here we are," the dwarf says with flourish, breaking Carver out of his somber thoughts. A door is opened with an anguished creak that betrays the frequency of its use. He expects dust and darkness, but is greeted instead by a crackling fire in the grate. Everything is newly clean, the bed made with fine, crisp linens, the curtains thrown open to catch the last of the day's light, the wood and glass polished to gleaming. The dwarf gives a proud nod as Carver looks around, trying to hide what his face would readily give away. "Yes, messere, Orana certainly did a fine job. This is the room your mother had set aside for you when your sister took over the estate. Your things are already here." The dwarf beams at this, a smile that does not falter when Carver turns on him.

"My things?" he asks, incredulous. He's a Grey Warden; what few things he has are carried on his back, and what cannot be is not worth holding on to. But when the dwarf gestures to the desk, Carver realizes upon closer inspection that he's wrong. The ties to his old life are here, unsevered, as well cared for as if he'd never left them behind. Trinkets, really, bits and pieces of a life abandoned, picked up along the way when he'd still had the choice of where his feet took him. It shouldn't matter to him, but he sees his mother's love, her brittle hope, in every shadow here, and the lump in his throat rises before he can think to get hold of himself and it's all he can do to stop the tears from falling.

The dwarf, who is kinder than expected, leaves quietly with no more fuss, and Carver, who has more ghosts and demons haunting him than he is willing to admit, sits down on the bed and attempts to shove them back in the darkest corners of himself, where they belong. It's not an easy fight, and the pain of his mother's loss and the anger at his sister make it even harder. His fists are clenching the quilted satin bedspread and he's ready to shout and rail and storm when there is a soft knock at the door, so quiet that he's surprised he heard it over the noise inside his head. He waits, and after a time the knock comes again, and he realizes it's not his sister, who would have come barging in by now. Sighing, he mumbles something like an invitation and the door opens.

"Some water, messere. Bodhan thought you would like to wash," says the elven girl, Orana, and just like that, he knows the dwarf's name and is a step closer to caring. The girl's eyes are downcast as she carries the ewer and basin into the room and sets them upon the stand. "The drying cloths are here," she adds, motioning toward the drawer set in the stand, "and your clothes are there." Another vague gesture, this time toward the wardrobe with its ornately carved doors. She's gone before he can think of anything else to say, but unlike the dwarf, it's not so much out of respect than out of a desire to remain unseen. The most timid creature Carver has ever encountered, and he can't for the life of him guess where his sister found her. Probably whilst doing something heroic, he thinks; his sister is an ass like that.

"Wait," he says, just as Orana is closing the door. She pauses, looking back over her shoulder, and again he's struck by her strange green eyes, full of hope and fear. Silently, she waits, caught in the trap of doing as she's told. Quickly, feeling terrible just for speaking to her, Carver asks, "My sister's room. I don't know where it is."

"Back through the library and into the parlour, messere; her chamber is up the stairs, to the right," she says, and the relief is clear in every word she speaks, relief that he's asked for something she can readily answer, that he's made no real demands of her, for he is a stranger to her and a Grey Warden and as terrifying a person as she's ever met. Or so he assumes. It's only later on that he learns how little he really knows; about his sister, about her household, and about damn near everything else.

"Thank you," he says, a beat too late; she's already closed the door, eager to get away. He can't blame her, knowing his blackness emanates like the heat of a fever, contagious and unforgiving. His sister is the only one who has ever been able to walk away from his brooding unscathed. He misses her for that. It might be the only reason he misses her. But he cannot sit and brood forever in his cloud of gloom; his time with the Wardens has taught him to abhor idleness, and so it's not long after that he's on his feet, if only for the respite from the intrusive thoughts and bitter regrets that come with doing nothing. He takes off his armour, a long and arduous battle by himself, but he cannot bring himself to call his sister's servants for help. An armour stand has been set in the corner of the room, a sensible afterthought among all the expensive and imposing furniture. His gauntlets are nowhere to be seen, and he reminds himself to ask after them later. It's a small pleasure to wash away the dirt and sweat of a week on the road, and when he's finished, standing in only his breeches, his hair wet and his chest bare, he feels a sense of peace settle in, as if he has at last come home, and he sinks down to the bed once more, sitting on its edge as if he's ready to spring up again and run, and slowly he forces himself to breathe deeply, wills his heart to cease its relentless pounding, and brings himself back under control one excruciating moment at a time.

He knows he cannot avoid her forever. The time to face his sister and all she's done has come.

He goes to the wardrobe and opens the doors, one and then the other, revealing its meager offering, a few worn shirts and collars neatly folded, trews stacked next to them, a set of leather bracers placed to the side. He recognizes all of it, surprised at its very existence, especially in this grand place, surprised that his clothes weren't thrown away or left at his uncle tenement to rot. Had his mother truly expected him to come back? If she had, she'd died disappointed. The guilt cuts Carver like a knife, deeply and so suddenly, he worries for a moment he might very well bleed from the wounds his past has left on him. But there is no blood to let from invisible scars, and all that's left of him weeps for what can never be.

He pulls the clothes from the shelf and puts them on, shaking his head in dismay at the looser fit. The boy who wore these clothes died in the Deep Roads, and the man, the Warden, the dead boy became has no use for them, but in memory of his mother, he wears them, telling himself he is proud, home, where he belongs, for reasons of his choosing. Lies, all of it. The clothes cannot cover the guilt of leaving, the shame of his too-late return. He worries that nothing can hide his torment, that he wears it as readily as his armour, his inferiority as plain as day and out there for the world to see.

It's with these miserable thoughts that he leaves his room and goes, finally, to his sister.


	5. Chapter 5

**V.**

He knocks on her door like an unwanted guest, but all that greets him is silence. The seconds tick by, in sync with the rushed and furious beats of his heart, but no noise comes from within and so with a groan, he rests his head on the heavy door frame. He does not want to wait now. He _cannot_ wait, eager and impatient as he is, feeling more the child with every moment that passes, too long kept from that which he's dreamed of, that which he's dreaded, and so like a child he gathers his nerve and barges uninvited into her room. The door is unlocked. There is no one to say anything against his entry. There would have been no one able to stop him, anyhow.

He expects the room to be dark, with draperies shut tight against the gloaming, dim and stuffy and reeking of dust and despair, but he finds none of these things, and it stops him short on the threshold. He will realize later on that he walked into that room with far too many expectations, all of them formed from old memories and as substantial as the smoke of a candle. What he finds instead will reform everything he ever thought to be true. What he finds will shake him to his core. What he finds will change him forever.

It's the cold he notices first, biting at his cheeks and his arms, as crisp and clear as if he's stepped back outside, despite the roaring fire behind the grate throwing long, dancing shadows against the walls. There's a wooden bathtub before the fireplace, and he imagines the water is stone cold, perhaps already turned to ice what with the frigid air in the room as good as a winter afternoon. Against the far wall is a bed, richly draped in crimson velvet – and on this majestic bed huddles his sister, blankets wrapped carelessly around her shoulders and loyal mabari at her feet, and she sits in abject stillness and silence as the snow swirls in through the open windows.

"Damn it, Marian," he swears, and he's across the room in an instant – not to her, no, but to those open windows, the wind blowing in full of teeth and fell wailing, fighting against him as he pulls the shutters closed and bolts them tightly. When he turns around to face her, she and the dog both are watching him, eyes alight with curiosity and wariness.

"Hello, Carver," she says, and though her voice is barely more than a whisper, and as cracked as parched earth, she speaks as though she's glad to see him, as if the horror and tragedy that had befallen their mother was not what had brought him there. She has the audacity to smile at him then, weak and watery though it is, and he fears for a moment he might strike her. His fists curl and he feels that familiar anger rise up inside him, as old as the bones in his body and the heart in his chest, but the moment passes as that smile of hers fades, and they are left staring at each other over the middle ground that has always existed between them, that strange plain of judgment and misunderstanding neither of them has ever had the courage or will to cross.

He realizes then, staring at her as he is, that he has no idea what to say to her, this sister of his who is all the family left to him in the world. Every word, every question, every threat that had run through his mind during his journey falls abysmally short of the turmoil he feels now, staring at her and not understanding, not _knowing_ what she's done, what _more_ she could havedone, and how of all the people in this blighted city of chains, it was their mother whom she failed. He stands on the precipice of her sorrow, staring down into its depths, the mirror of her dark eyes swimming with tears like molten silver. It's his own pain that holds him back, keeps him from falling, keeps him from drowning. He is not moved. His head is clear, his lungs bursting with air that's cold and sharp as knives.

In the end, it's the dog that moves first, breaking the spell of silence like ice and promises as he stretches out on the bed, his long body made entirely of bristly fur and corded muscles, a melodramatic yawn escaping that dark, smirking maw. He pads off the bed and down onto the floor, lean and lithe, king of all this small domain. He casts his bored and baleful eyes to Carver only once, a slim acknowledgment for the unworthy, before strutting across the room and slumping down with all afforded grace in front of the crackling fire.

Marian smiles again, a fleeting wisp of life across her bleak, pale face.

"Have you come to kill me, little brother?" she asks, those sad, sad eyes fixed on his, those wide and unapologetic eyes.

"I wanted to," he says, surprising himself with the weak-willed confession. He knows the Maker had damned them both long ago, abandoning all mercy, and there will be no absolution. "Seems a little pointless after coming all this way." He still stands over her, watching as her shadow falls across the bed, shifting in the firelight, knowing his looms greater, taller, behind him and he feels all the more insignificant for it. Even after all that has happened, crumpled and defeated as his sister is, he will never be as she is. His conscience is too petty, his vision too narrow, his heart too small.

"Then why are you here?"

It's a fair question, and it deserves an honest answer. He owes her that much, though he can't for the life of him guess why. "Aveline sent for me. And the dwarf. Varric, I mean," he amends, thinking of the steward downstairs, wringing his hands with worry and grief, a pale imitation of Leandra on the day her two surviving children left for the Deep Roads. He wonders then, as he's wondered often, how she received the news that he would never come home, that she would never see him again. He thinks again of the letters that battled their way through snow and hail to reach him, the heavy burdens carried by ink and paper – first his uncle's, short and cheap and devastating, then Aveline's, crisp and eloquent and touched by tears.

His sister takes in his words, his meagre offering of truth, and something strange comes over her face; a certain indefinable distance settles into her eyes, cloaking her emotions like descending twilight. He thinks she might say something then, something snappy and clever, but instead she sighs, her eyes closing as those looming tears finally fall like the breaking of a storm. She falls back onto the pillows, covering her head with the blanket that guarded her so well, effectively shutting out the world – and him. It's a sorry sight, pathetic really; his sister, the hero, wretched and broken, hiding and crying like a child, but he feels no pity as he knows he should. There is no remorse in him now, no shame. Only his anger, his resentment, that constant companion like a slow, steady ache deep within.

"Bloody hell," he curses under his breath, though he doesn't know why he bothers to keep his voice down, doesn't know why he wants to shield the household from his displeasure, and her most of all. He does not know what to make of this sadness that's taken hold of her. Marian, the eldest, ever the favourite, always strong and steadfast; she was the foundation on which they had tried to build their new life, the light which had shone during the darkest of hours.

Now there is no light in her, no strength; now there is only shadow and misery.

Carver does not know that he can stand this a moment longer, the deterioration of she whom he has always envied, always admired, and yes, always loved; loved with his whole being until he thought it might consume him, loved her and hated her for all that she is and all that he could never hope to be, that light and that strength that he'd wanted only for himself, the rest of the world be damned. Once, there had been three parts to the whole, two beautiful, special sisters, and him in the middle, jealous and ordinary, but so, so proud. So protective. Now, he thinks only of leaving her, of killing her, of taking her in his arms, to beg her forgiveness and whisper into her hair. He's as broken as she is.

By the Maker, what have the years done to him?

He can only stand to watch her for so long until his bitter regrets drive him into action. He kneels against the edge of the mattress, and tugs at the blanket that covers her. Contrary to what he expects, she gives no resistance. The blanket slips down easily, dragging across her skin like a funeral shroud, revealing to him her curled and weary form. Her dressing gown is loose, gaping open in the front, showing creamy skin and the curve of her breasts, half-hidden by fabric that refuses to betray what modesty remains to her, riding up on long legs and round thighs. He slides his arms beneath her, under her arms, under her knees, and lifts her as if she were a disobedient child. She is lighter than he remembers, though he can't for the life of him think of the last time he held her like this. Maybe never. Again, he expects her to fight, but she only lolls her head back and glares at him.

"What are you doing?" she asks, eyes narrowing with suspicion. Still, she doesn't fight; she trusts him.

More the fool her.

The dog's eyes glitter in the firelight as he impassively watches Carver carry his mistress across the bedroom. Though she weighs little, she's the most cumbersome armload Carver has ever encountered, all of it sorrow, and guilt, and shame, and regret. So it's a relief, a blessing really, when he reaches the bath that had been drawn for her, the bath that's been left cold and untouched, and unceremoniously drops her, dressing gown and all, into the water.


	6. Chapter 6

**VI.**

She comes up sputtering and swearing like a half-drowned cat. For a moment, one single moment, there's so much life in her that she's no longer a ghost of herself, no longer a shadow, but fierce flesh and blood, beautiful and dangerous, full of glory. But then she drags a hand through the dark ribbons of her hair and flashes those sad eyes at him, and his indomitable sister is gone once more, replaced by that creature of sorrow and shade. The difference is so quick and so complete that he's left staring, wondering if he'd really seen the change after all.

"Maker's blighted breath, Carver," she gasps, "what was that for?"

"The greater good, if it brings you round to sense," he tells her, staring down at her, trying to find the tiniest of cracks in the illusion of abject grief she's casting, but he is no mage, no templar, and her power is too great. "Though I hardly think it will be worth the trouble."

"When have I ever been worth your trouble, little brother?"

He sighs roughly; it's almost a growl. "I'm here, aren't I?" He hunkers down next to the tub, folding his arms along the edge and resting his chin atop them. He tries to catch her eyes; she is a restless quarry, but he is nothing if not persistent. "Do you hear me, Marian? I'm _here._ "

"I'd noticed." Still refusing to look at him, she settles down into the water, a battle she's decided against before it even starts, and though he says nothing, though he knows his face shows nothing, he's glad of this unspoken treaty, glad and grateful. Idle, and eager to allow the silence to run its course, he dips long fingers into the water, and finds it as cold as he'd imagined it to be when he'd dumped her in. A wave of fresh guilt washes over him, but it's short-lived. Even as he sits there, he feels the water growing warmer, a mark of his dear sister's affliction, her magic untouched by her misery. He snatches his hand from the water as if it had burned him, though it had come nowhere close, and he catches the smallest, sweetest of smiles flicker across her face before she realizes he's watching. She has the grace to turn away to hide her amusement at his discomfort.

"Still so squeamish," she remarks. "Are there no mages in the Grey Wardens? I thought they took all kinds."

"There are," he says shortly, glaring at her, though still she refuses to meet his gaze, "and they do. Convinced them to take me on, didn't you?"

Her cheeks flush pink, and she sinks a little lower into the now steaming water. He's no fool as to think for a moment that the colour has aught to do with the temperature of her bath, and he feels some semblance of satisfaction. "Carver," she says slowly, "I –"

He holds up a hand; he cannot listen to her excuses now, not after everything that's happened – the doomed expedition, his would-be Joining and all the years since, the darkspawn and death that follow in his wake, and now Mother, their proud and gentle mother. He wasn't there to help her, wasn't there to save her, wasn't there when all the lovely pieces of her burned to ash, the hollow words of the Chant sung over her bones in pale imitation of the grim incantations that had stolen her life. All of it gone now, as if it never was, with only their memories to echo what her life had been.

"Don't," he says. "Please, sister, don't." Finally, he finds her eyes because she allows it, and he locks them with his own, solemn brown to piercing blue, and he wonders what she finds in his eyes, if she's left as bereft and wanting as he is.

"You must blame me," says she, her voice strained, strange. She sinks even lower into her bath until the water slips over her nose, until all that's left above the surface is her eyes, the line of her brow beneath her fringe, the tips of her ears. His dark sister; the hero, the saviour. She is so much more to him; she's his own personal demon from whom there is no escape. Not that he wants to. Not that he's ever tried.

"Do I blame you for saving my life? Of course I blame you. Damn pretentious of you, if you ask me. How dare you save me?" Anger boils in him, painting all his good intentions red. "How could you, honestly, when – when –"

She reads him like a book; always has and always will. He hates her for it, such care and concern always so misplaced. She sits up straight again, the thin layer of her dressing gown clinging to her shoulders, dark with water. It sticks to the pale flesh of her breasts, all pretense of modesty left to the wayside with each gentle lap of the water against her body. She is a thing beyond beauty, his sister, just as Bethany was, and he fancies for a moment that he can see the beating of her strong and moral heart in the lush valley between her breasts, the pulsing of flesh that stretches taut and unmarked over her ribcage. He wants more than anything then to press his cheek to that warm, special place, to hear her heart beat and to finally know what makes them so very different. He glances up then, conflicted and cross, only to find her still watching him, breath held tight behind her lips, and like a child, he flushes with the shame of being caught looking at what he oughtn't.

Still, the desire remains, and oh how it tears at him.

"Carver," she says, oblivious to his sinful distraction, her thoughts still solely on herself and the blame he'd cast her way. "I couldn't save her. We were too late. Everything we did was too late." The tears come on swiftly then; his sister who hadn't cried when they'd lost their father, the steadiest thing they had ever known; his sister who hadn't cried when they'd buried Bethany beneath her cairn of stones. She puts a hand over her eyes to hide this breaking from him, as if its the greater shame, the loss of their dear mother paling in comparison to the unbidden tears of Marian Hawke.

"Mari," he says softly, taken off his guard by this blatant show of guilt and grief. He's never called her that before, their father's little endearment for his protégé, his favourite child. He wonders how long it's been since anyone called her that; how strange it is that he's the one who finally does.

"Why are you here, Carver?" she asks again, her hands dropping away from her face; he thinks she means to wipe the tears away but instead she lets them fall, lets them run down her cheeks and drop of her chin to leave ripples in the bathwater. She's keeping a close eye on him, looking for the same cracks in his armour that he had tried to find in hers. He hopes she'll be just as unsuccessful, but that hope is all he has. She's always been better than him at most everything.

Why was he _there_? She'd asked him, yet he had no answer, not for her and not for himself. He'd spent so much of his life wallowing in jealousy, wanting all she had, wanting to be all she was, even if it meant the taint of magic in his blood, he who was nothing but ordinary. He'd never known with her the equality he'd taken for granted with his twin, and after the Blight had stolen Bethany away from him, there was nothing left but fury and inferiority, a lifetime of feelings he'd never bothered to understand, let alone come to terms with. More the fool was he, sitting here with Marian now, where all her friends had come before him and failed; Isabela with her drinks and her cards, Aveline with her common sense, Varric with his stories and easy smiles, and Fenris –

Well, flames take them all, even the elf. No, the elf especially.

His sister breaks into his thoughts, unwelcome as always. "Why do you refuse to answer me?" She laughs at the question even as her eyes still brim with tears. "You say Aveline sent for you, but when have you ever listened to Aveline? When have you ever listened to anyone but yourself?"

"Maker, you are thick sometimes," he says lightly, putting a hand on her shoulder, the fabric of her dressing gown bunching beneath his fingers as he squeezes her gently, a gesture meant to be comforting when he has no true comfort to give. "I'm here because they said you needed me. Is that not reason enough for you?"

She blinks at the unexpected answer, more tears falling. It seems they might be the last – for a time, at least – for none come to take their place. "The Grey Wardens have changed you," she says, looking at him in a new light.

He finds he is unable to hold her gaze any longer. He has to look away before her sadness overwhelms him, but never does he move his hand from her shoulder; it is an anchor holding him to this world of shadow and mourning that she has come to dwell in, as she faces the demons he's always run from. Without the touch, he fears he would be lost.

"Life changed me," he says, for the first time feeling his own sorrow bearing down on him. He wonders how she can stand it. "The Wardens had nothing to do with it."


	7. Chapter 7

**VII.**

Once, he'd thought to prove to her that he was worthy. It's the first thing he can remember wanting. The only thing.

Carver remembers himself as he was all those years ago, a tumbling bundle of dark hair and scraped elbows, gracelessly long legs and sun-freckled cheeks, chasing after his older sister always a step out of his reach, striving faster, pushing harder, always left behind, always found wanting. And trailing behind him was Bethany, in that careful, thoughtful way she had, small and quiet and unendingly kind; always last and never bothered by it, watching with hazel eyes that saw far too much, ever with a vague, gentle smile on her lips that whispered to him of home. Even now, as the distance of years and loss and death separates them until she's no more than a shadow at dusk, hazy and out of focus, when Carver thinks of home, he thinks of the three of them walking in their line through the pale gold fields of Ferelden, Marian ahead and Bethany behind and him ever caught in the middle, belonging to neither one nor the other.

Now he is last, and there is no one behind him. There is only ahead. Still Marian runs and he follows, blindly and without reason. He thinks his time has finally come to catch her and claim his victory over her, but even now he cannot think what it will mean for them; he does not ever spare a thought for what will come after.

He sits with her until the water grows chill again and she begins to shiver. She has kept her own counsel until now, with naught a word to share with him; she'd drawn her knees up to her chest to rest her chin upon, arms locked about them so tightly that her knuckles have long since turned white. The fire burns low in the grate, the glow catching in her dark eyes and bringing them to life, even as the shadows lengthen along the walls, wavering weakly, threatening to consume them both in darkness.

"Marian," he says, touching her shoulder. She rouses from her daydreaming, blinking back the glassiness in her eyes until she looks at him clearly, focused; she frowns at the sight of him, as if he's the last person she wants to see. It irritates him, that unwelcome reminder, that vulnerable familiarity sweeping over him as the most gentle, intimate of touches. The push and pull of it makes him dizzy, and he looks away. He will not rise to such callous disregard.

"You'll catch your death, you sit there much longer," he says gruffly; he stands, searching for his mislaid indifference.

"You sound like Mother," she says with impassive grace, but the silence that follows falls woefully short of the guilt he finds in her eyes when he looks back to her in surprise that she would say such a thing, when it was she who – "I'm sorry," she says quickly, and she bites her lip, teeth sinking into the flesh so sharply he thinks she might bleed. Perhaps it is only vain hope; the better to prove her mortality, the tragic beating of her hollow heart.

"Do as you please," he says, turning away once more. He wants nothing quite so much as to leave her there, but he has not the will, his desire be damned. He turns his attention to the fireplace, kneeling down, forcing his hands from idleness. He takes logs from the basket to bank the fire anew, and it isn't long before it's blazing again, throwing heat like a demon, writhing as something alive. He hears her rise from the water, and his ears burn as he stares intently into the flames, refusing to turn, to acknowledge her, and yet –

He stands, and braces an arm against the carved stone mantel that rises above him, grand and imposing. He leans all his weight into it, and lets his head hang, his eyes closing with the burden of her presence at his back, dripping water and so very exposed. To his shame, he flinches when her sodden dressing gown hits the floor with a heavy squelching sound, and the knowledge that she stands naked within his reach is almost too much to allow, his fierce and foolish sister, her flesh bared and her blood rushing, her dark hair stuck to her shoulders in long snaking tendrils. The picture in his mind is so clear and so explicit that he would not turn to spoil it with the truth of her, merely his sister, pale and shivering and human after all.

But she is restive, this woman whose flesh is as his own, and she is such a greedy thing, unwilling to allow him his private shame.

"Carver," she says as she steps up beside him, placing fingers like ice on his bare arm.

He whirls on her then, a fury blazing like a thousand stars inside of him. He does not touch her; he fears what will become of them if he does. But he advances, looming over her as she shrinks back. She's wrapped in a drying cloth, tucked under her arms and clutched to her breast, draping down her body as a shroud, clinging here or there to bone and curve. She stands her ground, using her courage as a crutch. Her pride, even in the face of her failings, cuts him to the quick. He would see her cower; he would see her kneel. He does not know if she knows how, vain and prideful creature that she is. He thinks, perhaps, that someone ought show her; yet in that moment, never does it cross his mind that the burden should fall to him.

"Damn you, Marian," he swears, running his hands through his hair, if only to keep from wrapping them around her throat. "What is the matter with you?"

She stares at him blankly; he expects tears, craves them, but is sorely disappointed. Perhaps she has not a tear left to cry after giving them all over to the bathwater, or perhaps he can no longer inspire them in her, as if she's become immune to his disapproval and resentment – and if so, they are a step closer to returning to where they once were, and it bothers him, just how welcome that would be. This uncharted territory of care and concern troubles him deeply.

"This is all so very like you, Carver," she says, shaking her head, refusing to look at him, ever her last defense. "You barge in after three years without a word, making your demands, your accusations. I've lost so much. I have no more to give you." Her voice breaks under the weight of her grief, but her eyes remain dry.

"I've lost all that you have, in case you'd forgotten," he says spitefully, turning away. His eyes go to the fire, the cleansing heat of it washing over his face. He reaches out an arm to the mantel again, fingers splayed against the warm stone. "I lost my father, my mother, my sister. All that remains to me is you."

"How sad for you," she says wearily, but the hint of sarcasm is not lost on him. Even as defeated as she is, she still can't contain that smart mouth. "You act as though these are the paths we have chosen, when they were chosen for us – and yes, I forced the Wardens upon you, I haven't forgotten, no matter what you might think. Mother moaned about it until the day she died, what I'd let happen to you in the Deep Roads."

"That wasn't –" He grits his teeth, and glares at her; she returns his gaze in kind, never faltering. A shout of frustration threatens to tear through him, but he swallows it back, feeling its heaviness caught in his throat, a constant reminder of what she does to him. "That wasn't your bloody fault, Marian."

"I should never have let you go." She sticks her chin out, as stubborn as ever. She'd fight tooth and nail until the end of time to take on all the burdens of the world if it meant she were saving him from a like fate. She'd been that way with Bethany, too, until the very last. Their father had deemed it so.

"And taken all the glory for yourself? Now that does sound like you." He's still angry, and makes no attempt to hide it. "I didn't come all the way to Kirkwall from some flame's forsaken corner of nowhere to dredge up ancient history with you, Marian. What's done is done, do you hear me?" He reaches out and takes her chin in his hand, pinching her firmly with two fingers so she cannot look away. Her eyes burn into his, reflective of the fire he knows has always raged inside of her, a fire that is so much like their father and nothing like their mother. It's the same fire that burns within his own heart, so great and terrible as to consume everything in its path and turn all the world to flame.

It's no wonder they've never gotten on – they've always burned each other with but a single look.

"What's done is done," she mutters after him, twisting her lips as though she cannot bear the taste of the words, the white lie that they are. "Then tell me true, brother: here now as you are, in this moment, are you here for my well-being, or is it your own conscience you've come to clear?"

He opens his mouth in immediate retaliation to her baiting, but words leave him, argument leaves him, and he's left cold and stammering, his hand on her face and her eyes locked to his, dark and demanding. She has always known her strength over him, her sassy and silver tongue running circles around his slow, dim-witted stumblings ever since they were children, and it rankles him now that she would use it to her advantage, testing him so when they are both so very unguarded. She seeks a fight, he knows, that steady, familiar ground on which they both know how to stand. How easy would it be to give her what she wants, when it's the very same thing that he so desires, as well?

Instead, he holds his tongue, the fierce will inside of him that would give his sister her heart's desire, if only to ease their suffering. Instead, he lets his hand slide along her jaw, to sink his fingers into the damp, tangled hair behind her ear, and it's there that he anchors himself, grip tightening until he's certain that it must be painful for her, but never for a moment does even the most fleeting hint of discomfort betray her. She stands as a statue, stands as calm as still water, her head tipped back with the weight of his pulling, staring at him with trusting eyes as he lowers his face dangerously close to hers.

"Can it be both, sister?" he asks, his voice scarcely more than a whisper. There is no menace in him now, only fatigue and defeat. In that, they are the same.

"It's always been both," she responds with a surety born of her place in this world, the eldest, the favourite, and he's left staring into those deep dark eyes that he knows so well, her thick lashes leaving cobwebs of shadow on her cheeks as she blinks up at him, so honest, so presuming, that he's all at once no longer certain of why he came to save her, after all.


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII.**

His sister's bed is a towering thing, its posts of richly carved mahogany inlaid with soapstone, all hung in crimson and roped with gold. It dominates the room, regal and magnificent, bedclothes of velvet and satin threaded with intricate scrolls of embroidery, pillows piled high against the crested headboard, all of it as soft and inviting as a maiden's kiss. It is a noble bed, a queenly bed, a beauty to behold – and at its centre, curled just as he found her, his wretch of a sister, the mage, the upstart, the keeper and the kept.

She still hasn't dressed, she of little shame. The white drying sheet is tucked under her arms, leaving her shoulders bare, loose in the front where it reveals more of the curve of her breasts than it should. It flows down to gather in her lap, showing off her knees and thighs as she sits cross-legged in the middle of the bed. He can't bring himself to sit with her, so he lounges against the bedpost, braced on one shoulder, watching her intently while she brushes her long dark hair and ignores him.

She's angry with him.

Despite what others might claim, Carver is not so much of a fool as to not know why. She's his sister, after all, and he knows her better than anyone else. His sudden appearance has humbled her, and his presence in her city, and her house, has become her disgrace. Never mind the moment of her breaking, never mind her meddlesome friends. For him to stand over her, knowing her shame and holding her to it, it's this indignity that she cannot bear, and though he knows he should be ashamed of himself, Carver savors every moment.

The hour has grown late while they have played this game of give and take they know so well. Her bedroom is warm again, the winter chill chased away with the flickering of the fire, but he cannot remember a time when she has been so cold to him. Within, there is safety, while without, a storm is rising. The shutters are rattling with the force of the wind as it seeks its entry into the house, angry now at its banishment. Carver realizes then that he is lucky to have arrived when he did, when those dark clouds hanging over Kirkwall were more than just an ominous warning.

A low growl and a whine brings Carver back to where he is. He looks over as the dog stretches out before the fire, strong and sinuous. Marian stops her brushing to watch him, firelight gathering in her eyes. There's a quirk at the corner of her mouth that could almost be considered a smile, but it fades like a dream upon waking when she glances over and sees him watching, and she returns to her face the solemnity that betrays naught but her indifference to him.

"I'm tired, Carver," she says, looking away again. She resumes her brushing, those delicate strokes. "Surely Bodhan has seen to preparing a room for you."

"He has," Carver says shortly, irritated that she's trying to get rid of him when it's her foolishness that brought the whole world crashing down in the first place, her weakness that left him the only one able to fix it. "Said it was my room, in fact. Mother's doing."

Marian gives an absent nod. "She hoped until the last."

"She was terrible for that," Carver says, summoning what annoyance he can if only to distract himself from the guilt and grief he cannot escape. He shakes his head at the thought of his hopelessly hopeful mother. "Thinking the horde would pass Lothering by. If I hadn't come back..."

"Is that what you think?"

"She didn't want to leave. Why else would you still be there?"

"We were waiting for you, you damn fool. She wouldn't leave without you."

"I could have died at Ostagar."

"But you didn't die. You came home to us."

Carver sits down on the bed then. "How could she have known I would?"

"She didn't know. She just hoped," sighs his dear sister. She shakes her head, loosing a stuttering breath that could almost have been a laugh. She puts the brush down; it slides from the bed and falls to the floor, but neither of them move to retrieve it. "Do you see now why a room was waiting for you? Can you truly blame her for believing there was even the slightest chance you were coming home?"

"And you did nothing to dissuade her," Carver says, running a hand through his hair. He doesn't need an answer from her, and he doesn't receive one. She only shrugs her shoulders, her chin down so he cannot see her face through the curtain of damp, heavy hair that frames it. "You knew I wasn't coming back, Marian. You, of all people."

"Maybe I had hope, too, Carver. Is that so hard to believe?"

It is. It is, and he hates her for it.

"Why? Is it because of him?" he demands; he cannot keep the disgust from his voice. "Not everyone takes their oaths so lightly, Mari."

The use of such simple affection, said with such disdain, causes her to look at him, and by the Maker, he wishes she hadn't; he expects sorrow from her, and instead he finds a fire burning bright in her eyes, eyes that are without tears, cheeks that are flushed with colour, a jaw that is set as stubbornly as his own.

"How can you be so ungrateful?" she asks. "You'd be dead without him."

"I will not owe my life to that abomination," he says roughly, enjoying watching her cringe with the indelicacy of his words. "It's bad enough owing my life to you. I told you: what's done is done. I'll speak no more of it."

"Of course you won't," she snaps. "You won't hear anything you don't want to. I had no choice, Carver! And neither did you. But you can't feel sorry for yourself that way, can you? If you can't be sullen and angry about it, it didn't happen. Ever the same, Carver. I don't know why you bothered to come at all."

"Neither do I." He stands again, ready to take his leave, even though there is no _leaving_ , not when he's stuck in this damn lonely house until the storm passes, and he's stuck in his blighted city until his conscience is cleared.

"Damn it, Carver, why won't you listen to me about Mother?"

He turns to see that she's chased him off the bed, that she's standing at his back and she's glaring at him, her chin high, her eyes shining fierce in the firelight. She's only ever come to his shoulder, but never has he seen her stand so tall.

"I had Gamlen's letter," he says coldly, "and it was more than enough."

"Enough for a coward who is frightened of the truth. Enough for him, and enough for you. I had no idea you were still scared of the dark, brother."

The insult cuts him deeply, and his oldest wounds tear open once more at her words to bleed anew. He is the chastened child again, small and afraid and whimpering in the night, and she is the only strength he knows, crawling into his bed in the darkness to wrap her warm arms around him and chase the shadows away. She is his sole tormentor, the cruelest of demons whose power is his weakness, who taunts him mercilessly in the light of day.

She turns from him as he looks away, as he is caught beneath the sway of memories so old their disturbance stirs the dust in his mind until he can see naught but what they reveal, little girl and littler boy, an ancient bedstead, and the monsters in the dark.

"I'm not afraid," he says, and he means it. He can bear the shame of the words; how is she to know they are spoken for his own sake?

"You are," she argues. She stands before the fire, overshadowed by the towering mantel. She wraps her arms about herself, a forlorn comfort as she stares into the flames. The light shines through the thin drying sheet she wears as a dress, showing the silhouette of long legs, the curve and dip of her hips and waist. She looks over her shoulder at him. "If you've come all this way to hide from the truth, Carver, then you've come for nothing."

"I came for you," he says. He moves to stand behind her, putting his big hands over her small ones where they rest on her arms. She's cold again, even standing before the fire. "I don't know how much more than this I can take, Mari."

She looks up at him again, her mouth drawn, her dark eyes searching his face. "I need you to know the truth, Carver," she whispers, her voice breaking, her vulnerability showing through with every other word.

"I don't want –"

"I know."

He sighs deeply then, resting his brow against her temple. He can smell the soap on her skin, sweet and sharp and much too close. He doesn't pull away, he cannot, not when she relaxes against him, leaning back into his chest. Her fingers open to tangle with his. In that moment, they two are bound, and there is no breaking away. He does not know that he ever could. He lets his head fall, pressing his lips to the cool skin of her bare shoulder. The delicate touch brands her with the warmth of his mouth, much too innocent, far too intimate. Her grip on his hands tightens until he wonders if his fingers will break before she is satisfied that she has him.

He closes his eyes against the pain in his hands; even now, he cannot pull himself away. "Mari," he says into her neck, "why can't you let it be?"

Her head lists back against his shoulder, her throat straining, and he's overcome with the desire to run his fingers along it, to feel the softness of her, the strength of her blood as it pulses beneath her skin, but her hold on his hands is too great, and he would not break the touch, not even unto the ending of the world. He flushes then with the pull of his want, the weight of his sin and his shame, and the heat of it is so fierce, he worries she might burn away to ash in his arms.

"I won't leave it," she says as she stares into the flames, so unaware of the turmoil inside of him, so caught up is she in her own despair. "But I will wait until you're ready, if I must. I need you, Carver. I cannot bear this alone."


	9. Chapter 9

**IX.**

Later that night, he thinks about leaving.

He's in the library when the thought crosses his mind. He's already halfway through the strongest Antivan whiskey he could find in his sister's collection, a bottle so dusty he'd left fingerprints on the neck when he picked it up. Now, the cut crystal is smeared with grime from his rough handling, and though he knows he should stop before he does something he'll regret, he's intent on seeing the world from bottom of the bottle before the night is over.

He should not be here. They are both in danger.

He does not know what has come over him – but like the ghost of a memory of a terrible fevered dream, it is hauntingly familiar. He is well-acquainted with the unrest his sister stirs within him, the way his blood rises, the way his heart pounds like a drum marching off to war. Everything about her has always antagonized him, and he does not know why he thought this would be any different.

But this –

This is new, and it is strange and sickening; it is the strongest pull he has ever known. He cannot for the life of him wrap his head around it, so afraid is he of what he will discover if he tries to pin down his thoughts to find the truth among the fear and the lies, and so he drinks with the hope that he'll soon forget about it altogether.

It could be the taint, he thinks, grasping at straws like a man drowning. It could be that monstrous evil inside him that he tries in vain to ignore, the horror and misery that comes to him only when he sleeps, to whisper to him of dark and vile things.

Yet, as he stares into the flames, bottle in hand and glass long abandoned, he knows that he is playing a cruel game of fault and blame, and the responsibility of what burns within him lies solely with himself. He is the cause and he is the consequence, and if he is not careful, every broken heart and every empty promise that has ever passed restlessly between them will fall at his feet, and there will be no one to blame but himself.

These years apart have changed everything.

Once, he had known where he stood. The middle child, the only son, overlooked and underwhelming. His father had placed a blade in his hands before he was old enough to know what it was he was fighting for. He protected his sisters from forces beyond their control, first Marian and then poor sweet Bethany, never knowing that one day, the danger he might have to protect them from was their very selves.

Because of them, he grew up strong, while because of him, they grew up smart. He grew up watching the shadows, while they grew up seeking the light.

 _"You grow to love that which you protect,"_ his father had said, looking down at his son with a heavy hand on his shoulder. _"One day, you'll understand."_

And like a wide-eyed child, Carver had believed.

They were three parts of a whole, Carver and his dark-haired sisters, inseparability everlasting. There were times when their mother had looked at them, huddled close to the fire, heads together, fretting over whether they were ready for the world outside the safety of their small house, whilst their father had smiled in that easy way he had, and consoled her, wondering aloud if it was the world that wasn't ready for them.

Carver smiles at the memory of the five of them, and the way things used to be.

He takes another long drink from the bottle, grimacing at the burn sliding down his throat and coiling in his belly, where it sits warm and heavy, sullen as a snake. All around him, the house is quiet. He does not know how a house so large can be so still; it reminds him of the Deep Roads in a way, dark and foreboding, a mausoleum to ages past. This is the glory his sister reclaimed in his absence. This is the legacy she will leave; a silent house full of empty rooms, dusty memories and a bloody history. It is fitting, he thinks, his sister doomed to suffer alone for all those she could not save.

If he is meant to feel remorse, the whiskey has washed it from him. He feels nothing but loathing, for this house, and himself, and for her, his sister, his blood, the millstone around his neck.

The fire has burned to embers and ashes by the time he makes his way to bed. The long shadows on the wall follow him as he mounts the stairs, feeling his way along gloomy corridors. Time spent in the Deep Roads has taught him a thing or two about navigating in the dark, and he finds his room without trouble. The door is ajar and the lamps beside his bed are lit; the bed is turned down, and the room is warm and welcoming, but he does not want to be there. He thinks of leaving, of disappearing into the night. He thinks of returning to Marian, to make demands she cannot possibly meet, questions she cannot readily answer, love she cannot willingly give. But a spirit-fueled guilt comes over him at the thought of waking her, and so he sits heavily on the edge of the bed, and tries to force thoughts of her from his mind.

A forlorn hope if ever there was one.

Sleep eludes him, even as exhaustion plagues him, turning his thoughts to nonsense. He thinks, perhaps, that he can hear the house breathing like some great living thing, just as one fancies they can hear the beating of their own heart when all the world is quiet and still, that hollow rhythm that chases the silence with its song. He has long since decided that he does not particularly like this cavernous house, he who has sworn to delve into the depths of the earth to walk along roads of stone carved by its very children. It is not its unwelcoming corridors, its high, forbidding windows, or its stonework like a shadow of old Tevinter looming over his head. No, this is something older, something deeper, something that speaks to his blood, his very bones. He should not be here, and neither should she, shame that they are, stain upon the lineage of a great house gone to ruin. The Warden and the mage, blind and foolish children, ever grasping at the leavings of their betters. The house will consume them, the pretenders, deceivers, they who are not worthy.

Solaced by such painful truths, Carver falls into a light, uneasy sleep – at least, he knows he must have, because he wakes with a start. He sits up, looking around for what awakened him, his mind full of cobwebs and unfledged dreams. It takes a moment for his bleary eyes to adjust to the dim light, but when they do, it's because they come to rest upon Marian, standing in the doorway like a ghost, white nightgown flowing down to her toes, dark hair spilling loose over her shoulders like descending midnight.

"What's the matter?" he asks, more roughly than he means to, slumber still caught in his throat like thistledown.

She doesn't answer him, only enters his room as if invited, closing the door behind her. The sound of the lock sliding into place is as loud as thunder. She pads across the room in her bare feet, childlike, reminding him so starkly of days gone by that he has to blink his eyes, and remind himself that he's not dreaming, that he's there, and she's there, alone behind a locked door, alone in a world that was never ready for them.

She sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, hands restless in her lap. The way she twists her fingers into knots reminds him of Mother, and he has to look away, up at her face, her eyes dark chips of stone glimmering in the firelight, her lips parted and full and frowning.

"I couldn't sleep," she says after a time, mistaking his bemusement as patience. She looks down at her fretful hands. "I saw your light on, and thought you were still awake. I didn't mean to wake you."

He knows the lie for what it is the moment it falls from her lips. Yes, she had meant to wake him. She is restive and frightened and lonely, he can see it in her eyes, her mouth, her hands. It crosses his mind to send her away, for both their sakes, but he can't make himself do it. He's still lost in the reverie of the past, little girls and littler boys, dark nights and darker dreams, white nightgown and warm arms, a dusty loft and the comfort of her embrace.

Now, the table has turned, and she is the one who is afraid. Afraid of the dark, afraid of the daylight, afraid of her demons, afraid of what she's done.

And so he moves over on the bed, opening his arms to her, and in that moment, though he does not know it then, he has damned them both because he cannot turn her away. He is her protector, come home at last, and though the time will be fleeting, and he does not know what will happen, he cannot deny her. He can blame the taint, or the whiskey, or the bloody Maker himself, but when he folds her trembling body into his arms and sits back against the headboard, his hand flat on her stomach and his lips in her hair, he feels a sense of peace settle down over him, as if he's where he's supposed to be, there at her side, and her at his. For a little while at least, there is no force in the world that will tear them asunder, for this time it was the breaking of the world itself that brought them back together again.

It is a rightness that is not made to last, this truce between them that is as fragile and fading as winter's palest dawn. But for now, it is enough, and wrapped up in each other, they sleep.

–

Carver wakes to a stiff neck and an aching back, to the chill of morning and the hazy gloom of a dawn that is not far off, gray light filtering in beneath draperies that are not quite closed. He wakes to an absence of warmth, and he is without the comfortable weight that had curled against him, the hand that had rested on his chest and played with the edge of his shirt, fingers that had dared to graze his skin of his collarbone, scared to venture beyond such inviolable ground.

He reaches out blindly, and he finds her; she's there after all, sitting next to him, about to disappear like the dream she isn't. She's flesh and blood, and he held her in his arms as they slept, felt her heart beat and her breath flutter against his neck. She is no dream.

"Carver," she says softly.

He shushes her. He knows. She cannot stay, cannot be found missing from her bed, cannot be found sneaking from his room like a thief in the night, or a lover at dawn. He flushes at the thought, but wraps his fingers around her arm all the same and pulls her back toward him. She comes willingly. From this moment on, she will always come willingly.

She touches her fingers to his jaw tentatively; he wishes that he could see her face, but the lamps have burned themselves out after a night of watching the sinners sleep, and the fire is naught but coals now, lending no light, no warmth, no comfort. It's in this darkness that she leans forward to kiss him, pressing gentle, doubtful lips to his. Chaste and imperfect, he could have left it at that, but that pull inside surges with want and with panic and with pain, and his hand is in her hair before he can think of what he's doing, of why it's so wrong, and the kiss he returns to her is demanding and fierce and entirely without honour or mercy.

He expects – he does not know what he expects in that moment, because he cannot rightly _think,_ for to think would be to know, and to know would be to act, to stop himself, to save them both, but what is done cannot be undone, and there is no turning back. Not from her, and not from this, not when she softens against him, accepting and then giving in kind, her arms twined around his neck, her tongue against his, her mouth hot and open. It is a desire that drips like candle wax, brittle and burning, and there is no escape from the mess of its spill.

When she pulls back – because she is the one that pulls back and breaks the spell – it's with a mumble and a gasp, and for a moment her fingernails dig deep into the back of his neck, as if she's searching for purchase before she falls. And then –

And then she pushes him away, pushes herself away, so suddenly and forcefully that she slides off his lap to the side of the bed, and for all the darkness, he's glad they can't see each other's faces, because he knows the disgrace would be too much a burden to bear.

Without a word, she leaves, all but stumbling off the bed and across the carpet. He does not call after her. He does not know what he would say. All he knows is that when she slams the door, the sound reverberates through him, knocking what little sense he has firmly back into place.

At least, that is what he tells himself. That is what he vainly hopes.

And it's with this false hope that he comes to face the dawn.


	10. Chapter 10

_I feel her filth in my bones_  
_Wash off my hands 'til it's gone_  
_The walls, they're closing in_  
_With velvet curtains_

"Slow it Down" - The Lumineers

 

**X.**

Carver takes his breakfast alone.

He soon realizes that staying in his sister's house will take some adjustment, even if he does not plan to be here long. He is not accustomed to being waited on hand and foot, but waited upon he is. He finds it to be wholly disconcerting, but he cannot bring himself to send his sister's servants away. They are eager to please him, and he can see in their honest faces how glad they are to have work to do. He does not imagine the past weeks since his mother's death have been easy. Even though he is only a guest, he feels the pall that hangs over the place, the loneliness that has spread in her absence; it is a void that cannot be filled, especially by him, he who is without stake in the fortunes of the family, he who does not care one way or another if the rooms are aired, if the woodwork is dusted, if the silver is polished until it gleams.

So far as he is concerned, there is no power in this world that will remove the tarnish from this place.

He waits for his sister to come downstairs, but stubborn as ever, she refuses to grace him with her presence. He does not know why he expected any less. The ghosts that haunted them last night cannot be chased away so readily, and he knows she still grieves, fearful of what truths she might see in his face by the cold, clear light of morning. A broken heart cannot be mended overnight, and he curses himself a fool for thinking otherwise.

Carver spends that first lonely day exploring his ancestral home – or, as one might rather put it, exploring the life his sister has built without him. The first thing he discovers is that the mansion is not so sprawling as their mother's stories had made it seem. Or, perhaps, he is older now, wiser, and has seen much of the wide world outside the tiny farmhouses in which he grew up, and he knows more of grandeur, and of greed and sacrifice, and he is no longer so easily swayed.

Still, the grand estate leaves its mark on him, so much more so than the fateful day he and his sister had crept along the tunnels beneath the house to clear it of the slaver vermin who had claimed it as their own for so long. He does not know how his sister can stand to be here, to know what evils have been done here and to turn her head away as if it is merely a trick of shadow and light. But he remembers. He goes down to the wine cellar, dark and dry, and sees the stains upon the floorboards that no amount of scrubbing could ever get out. He is not surprised. His sister has never been particularly efficient at washing the blood from her hands.

He walks down corridors that have known his blood but have never known him, and though he looks for ghosts, he finds none. The house is cold and empty. His mother was born here, and her father before her; little Amell feet to tread where little Hawke feet were forbidden ever to go. He does not understand why his mother and sister were so eager to forgive the years of poverty. He cannot forgive and he cannot forget. Ferelden is where he grew up, where he became who he is. Ferelden is in his blood and in his bones. He is no Marcher, no matter how his mother would have had him pretend. Even now, he finds he cannot honour her in such a way. A lifetime of bitterness has seeped into his very soul. He has not the means to forgive.

By midday, he has grown bored and he does not know what to do with himself. He has poked his head into every room, searching for the connection that will make him feel as though he belongs, but he does not find it. All he finds is his mother's room, memories safeguarded behind a locked door. He curses his sister for keeping him from it, and is chased away by Bodahn.

"I'm sorry, messere, but the dear woman's room is off limits. Orders of my mistress, I'm sure you'll understand."

Carver doesn't, and storms into his sister's room, ignoring the steward's continued protests; he gains immense satisfaction from slamming the door behind him. Marian bolts upright in her bed at the noise, sees that it's only him, and slumps back against the pillows again.

"Never a dull moment when you're at home, brother," she says. She's still dressed in her nightclothes, the same virginal white gown that cannot hide her wickedness; the ribbons threaded through the front are undone, exposing the expanse of her clavicle, the deep shadow between her breasts dipping down below where he can see. One arm rests over her stomach, the other above her head; the way her knuckles brush against the headboard sets his heart to pounding. The very picture of her is so warm and inviting that he is overcome with the urge to crawl up the bed beside her, to take her into his arms and cover her body with his own. Indeed, he begins to walk toward her before he comes back to his senses, and checks his step.

She only smiles at him, vague and enticing, and her eyes betray nothing.

"Get out of bed."

"Must I?"

"When was the last time you left the house?"

Her smile goes out like a snuffed candle, and she turns her head away.

Carver approaches the bed and sits upon its edge, close enough to take her hand in his if he so desired, but he cannot bring himself to reach out for her. She won't look at him, stubborn as she is, but he's never had the patience for it, and now is no exception. He presses her, heartless bastard that he is.

"When was the last time you left the house, Mari?"

She sighs and turns her head toward him, dark eyes cutting into him, a look so sharp that he worries he might bleed, that there's enough magic in that one hateful glare to tear him to utter ribbons.

"Sebastian," she says.

For a moment, Carver is confused. He knows of whom she speaks, though he knows little else. Sebastian Vael; decent archer, Chantry lapdog, vengeful prince. They helped him once, another incident of Marian's need to be everywhere and into everything. In the end, there were demons at the heart of it. It always turned out to be demons.

"What about Sebastian?" he asks through his teeth, still sour with memory.

"He took me to the Chantry on the day they read Mother's name during the Chant of Remembrance," she says, and the resentment is clear in her voice. Her eyes take on that faraway look that he's come to know so well. "He thought it would be good for me."

Carver would have laughed had it not been in such poor taste. As it is, he cannot stop the roll of his eyes. Someone tell Marian what was good for her? Heaven forbid.

"Let me guess," he says. "You disagreed?"

"Of course I disagreed. I don't need the grand cleric to tell me how and when to mourn my mother."

"Yet, it seems you need me to tell you when enough is enough."

When he thinks back on it, he realizes he's lucky that she didn't set him ablaze then and there with the pure force of her contempt. He regrets it immediately, a sure sign of how soft he's becoming where she is concerned. Instead of being hurt, she's angry, he can see it in her eyes, her flushed cheeks, the way she takes her bottom lip between her teeth. She's always done that, chewed on her lip when she's cross, and especially when she's cross with him. He's a little surprised she doesn't have a scar from all the long years of their weary dealings. The sight of her like that stirs something in him, the desire to push and argue until even that little bit of her composure is gone. It leaves him sullen, this childish urge to torment her to no end. How much has changed, how much has stayed the same.

"Marian, why is Mother's room locked?"

It is a question she is not expecting. She lets loose her lip as her mouth parts in surprise, and her brows knit together. She pushes up on her elbows. "Mother's room? What could you possibly want with Mother's room?"

"My reasons are my own."

"As are mine for keeping it closed," she says with a degree of finality, sounding so much like their father that he is, for a moment, chastened into silence, watching as she pulls a leg from the tangle of blankets and nudges his side with a bare foot. "Now get out."

He raises an eyebrow. She pushes at him again, more firmly this time, her toes digging into his ribs.

" _Out,_ " she demands again.

With an exasperated sigh, he takes her ankle in one hand. She's small, his sister; his thumb and forefinger meet as he wraps them around her ankle, and he can feel the strength in the very bones of her, the flex of tendons as she tries to wrest herself from his grasp. But his hold is stronger than she can readily break. He will not let her go.

"Enough, Marian," he says, trying to be gentle. A lost cause if ever there was one. She twists her leg again and he tightens his grip. It must hurt, but never once does she flinch. She sits up straight, her hair falling into her face as she glares at him. Her eyes burn into his, searing the wounds she's left on his pride, and all at once, his bleeding is done.

"Let me go," she says. There's a tremor in her voice, a note of panic. The neckline of her nightdress has fallen off one shoulder, and she does nothing to correct it. He swallows hard as his eyes move over the curve of her neck, the newly bared shoulder, all that naked skin. His throat tightens, and a ripple of heat is sent running through his chest, pulling like the tide. He has never known the peace of still waters, but this –

Carver moves without thinking, running his hand up her leg to hook behind her knee. He pulls her, and she has no choice but to come to him. The sudden motion unbalances her, and her hands go out behind her, arms braced to keep herself from falling back to the bed. He doesn't stop until she's next to him, almost atop him, close enough to touch her face, her hair. He doesn't. His hand stays anchored behind her knee, the other moving to wrap around her waist. Her nightdress bunches in his fist as he closes it at the small of her back, holding her where she is.

Through it all she does not look away, his dark-eyed sister. Her hands move to rest on his collar, and for a moment all is quiet and right as they watch each other but do not speak. Never have they stood on such equal ground. The distance between them has never been so small, so insignificant that it could be ended with a breath. A kiss.

He wants to. Maker forgive him, but he wants to. The night before washes over him again, gently at first, the warmth of her, the peace of this strange new truce struck between them, but then the wave swells as her kiss had swelled, and it overcomes him, steals his breath and his footing as he remembers the taste of her on his lips, the touch of her hands, all that dark hair locked between his fingers.

"Carver," she whispers now, and he realizes he has looked away. Contrite, he returns his eyes to hers, but he cannot hold them for long. He is flushed and hot. His heart is pounding, he knows it must be, for her hand has left his collar and drifted down to the center of his chest. There is presses fast, heavy, a relief and an anchor against that which would sweep him away. Succor midst sorrow, she waits.

"It's time to get dressed," he says, loath to let her go, but let her go he does, pulling his hand from beneath her knee. He rights the neckline of her dress, if only to prolong the moment, if only to run his fingers along the expanse of her shoulder, brush them against the back of her neck. She closes her eyes and leans into his touch. Her breath catches. He pretends not to notice.

"Come downstairs, Mari," he tells her, though he knows that he's almost begging, imploring her to come out of this locked room, for he fears he cannot take another day of being shut in here with her. This dim, suffocating place, where the fireplace is their abettor, the bed their conspirator, the walls a sanctuary they do not deserve.

His sister sighs. "If you insist."

He does.


	11. Chapter 11

**XI.**

"The snow has finally stopped."

"Oh, was it snowing? I hadn't noticed."

Carver looks at her, frowning. Funny. She's trying to be funny, but the attempt falls pitifully short. Perhaps she's forgotten who she's dealing with. Perhaps she's mistaken him for someone else, someone who appreciates such dry humour, someone who has the patience for it, someone who has even a breath of laughter left in his body. He is none of those things. He's never been able to stomach her sarcasm and sass, always so ill-timed and misplaced.

He remembers his first sight of her in so many long years, barging into her room unannounced to find the high windows wide open, and her curled up on the bed amidst a flurry of snow. Yesterday, he reminds himself, though it seems much longer than that. He looks around the library. This house has done something to him, he's certain. Time has all but ceased here. Surrounded by snow. Suffocated. The world has come to a grinding halt, and they are trapped in the standstill. Trapped together. He cannot think of a worse fate; he cannot think of anyone else he would rather share eternity with. They are hopelessly tangled in each other, ever fighting the ties that bind them, and in their struggle they have only grown closer. How cruel, the Maker's sense of humour. It's much sharper than his sister's.

"Will you leave tomorrow, now that the storm has passed?"

Carver glances over his shoulder. She's sitting in the wing-back chair he'd dragged close to the fire for her, a monstrously heavy thing, upholstered in the same deep crimson he's found in the rest of the house. Red like the blood of their ancestors, the Amell blood coursing through both their veins. Strange, he thinks, that it is only the Hawke blood in them that has ever shown true. Strange, but fortunate – for both their sakes.

"No, I'll stay on a while longer," he assures her. The smile she gives him warms him more deeply than the fire before him. He knows he should feel regret and shame, but he cannot summon the will to. Would that he could tell her how she affects him so; would that he could allow it of himself to give in to it, everything else be damned. He's still fighting it then; little does he know how short-lived his battle will be.

"I missed having you with me, brother," she sighs, her smile fading into shadow. "There is no one else I trust more to guard my back."

"What of Fenris? You always seemed to trust him well enough."

Her eyes cut toward him, and she spends a moment searching his face. "I do trust him," she admits, "but he doesn't – he's not – he's not _you_." Her every word is nonchalant, but her cheeks flush deeply, and she is betrayed. He has to look away, so unwilling is he to see her like that, defeated and disgraced. His fist clenches and he leans a little heavier on the mantel. He does not know what has happened in his absence, but his imagination is all too cruel in its relentless quest to fill the empty spaces.

"You know I can't stay," he says, but he speaks to the blazing fire, thinking perhaps he will see his words catch fire, curl and burn like paper, only to crumble to ash and disappear into the updraught. Carried away on the wind, she might never have heard them. But she does. He hears the chair creak as she stands, the padding of her bare feet as she crosses the stone floor. He expects her arms to go about him, but they don't – instead, she presses her palms flat against his back, just below his shoulder blades, and buries her face in the notches of his spine. He can feel the warmth of her breath through the fabric of his shirt, and the way it gently, intimately dampens the skin beneath makes him shiver.

She says something then, whispered words that are lost to the crackling of the fire, but she has not given the words over to the flames as he had. She's given them to him, to the very flesh of him, as if she would brand him so he could never escape her. Foolish, really. Doesn't she know that he has always been marked as hers, that he has always belonged to her?

"Marian," he begins, but –

"You could _stay_ , Carver," she says, her voice so small. A great shuddering breath goes through her, and he feels her tremble against him. Her hands close to fists, pulling at his clothes.

He stiffens. He cannot for a moment fathom the nerve of her, she who had turned him over to this cruel fate in her relentless pursuit to save everyone, his own desires left to the wayside. His bleeding heart of a sister, who could not bear to have his blood on her hands, and so she gave him up to taint and duty and sacrifice instead.

"You cannot ask me that," he says roughly. The arm braced against the mantel supports all his weight now, and hers as well, bearing them up with a dignity they have somehow lost, a grace they have never possessed.

"I must ask. I don't want to be alone."

"You're not alone. Aveline and the others, they're more a family to you than–"

"That does not change matters. With Mother gone... Carver, I would have you here so I would not lose what little remains to me of home. Yes, my friends are my family, but they are not _home_ to me. I am so afraid." Her voice breaks, and her grip on his shirt tightens, her nails scraping against his skin.

"You, afraid?" he scoffs. "You aren't afraid of anything."

"I'm afraid of never seeing you again. I'm afraid of losing you."

"Mari–"

"Stay with me."

Carver grits his teeth so hard they ache, and he draws an unsteady breath with great difficulty. He closes his eyes as he slowly breathes another, and another, each bringing strength, each bringing clarity. He has never paid such attention to so small a thing, but in that moment, it becomes all he knows. And when at last he is calm, and his head is clear, he opens his eyes to flame and stone, and utters the words that will break her heart.

"No, sister. I cannot stay, not even for you."

She shakes her head then, her forehead still pressed to his back. "Cannot, or will not?"

"Whichever pleases you," he says. Her boundless obstinacy aggravates him to no end. He turns then, pushing himself away from the mantel, ready now to stand on his own two feet. She lets him go only because she must, but she does not step away from him, so that he is practically on top of her, towering over her as he always has.

"Do you think so little of me, that I would abandon my vows on a whim? Because you begged it of me?"

"Carver–"

"I am not your abomination, content to cower and hide, ignoring what is in my very blood in order to pursue my own vanity," he says, spitting out words that have long been inside him, words she never cared to hear. "I have finally found my purpose in this life, sister, and it is not to rot in this mansion, holding your hand with the curtains drawn, while you wallow and waste away. It's time to get over yourself so the world can start turning again. Maker only knows why it always stops for you."

She slaps him.

For a moment, everything stills, and in the next, everything happens at once. Her eyes go wide as his jaw tightens. Perhaps it was harder than she meant to, because her hands cover her mouth as she gasps. His cheek stings, a familiar, forgotten pain. It's not the first time she's struck him for being insensitive, and he's sure it won't be the last. He counts then, breathing deeply, and when he gets to five, and he's almost certain that he's done being a bastard for the time being, he leans over to place a kiss on her temple, and he leaves her there in the library, staring dumbstruck into the fire.

When he comes back down the stairs, cloak in hand, she's gone, and he's glad of it. He does not think he could bear to face her again, eyes filled with a new kind of shame, her teeth digging into her lip to stop the apologies that would flow if she gave them half the chance. She's never been one to say she's sorry, even when her mistakes are so grave and so vast that the very foundations of the world are shaken and torn asunder.

But as he stands in the great hall and fastens his cloak, he catches a glimpse of her on the gallery above. She seems so small, her arms folded about herself, the forlorn comfort he refused to give. She watches him as he storms out of the house into the dark and the snow, and he does not wait to hear if she calls him back.


	12. Chapter 12

**XII.**

The Hanged Man is dim and smoky, reeking of damp and spilled spirits. It's exactly as Carver remembers it, and when he enters, and the stuffy, overbearing warmth of the place hits him full on, he closes his eyes and breathes deep, searing lungs already prickling with the cold. He is flooded with memories of a simpler time, an unexpected reverie of cards and drink, of laughter and song. This was where they had gathered, once upon a time, when he was too young and stupid and selfish to know the difference between jealousy and admiration. Star-crossed brother and sister, both so ignorant of what their rivalry was going to cost them.

He tries his damnedest to push her out of his mind then, rubbing at his watering eyes as if such rough handling would be enough to banish her forever. He cannot bear the thought of her sorrow haunting him here, in this self-imposed exile. He looks around desperately for respite, and he realizes that the Maker must be smiling on him, despite all he's done, because it's in that moment that Isabela takes notice of him, and calls his name.

She sashays over, all boots and bronze trinkets, her wide white smile washing over him like the breaking of waves against his rocky shore. She stops in front of him, hands on her hips. Her presence, as ever, is as dominating and overwhelming as the sea.

"There you are," she says through that saucy, perfect smile. "I was beginning to worry I'd have to walk up all those stairs to come see you."

"Am I really worth the trouble?"

"No," she laughs, and gives him a wink. "But it's on the way to the Rose, so I'd thought I might as well drop in."

"I doubt you'd have found it very welcoming."

A shadow crosses her face then, and that shield of a smile falters. But like a cloud passing over the sun, it returns, though it is lesser somehow, forced and mirthless. "Is it still that bad?" she asks, as if she cannot comprehend such all-consuming sorrow. As she shakes her head, the medallions at her ears glint and glimmer with captured firelight.

An image enters his mind then, unbidden. His sister's room, the massive fireplace casting long shadows to dance along the walls, those high windows open, all that swirling snow – and in the middle of it, Marian. Careless, reckless, unaffected Marian, so concerned with the welfare of a dead woman that she is heedless of her own.

"It's bad enough," he tells Isabela. "I couldn't tell you if it's better or worse."

Isabela sighs, and shores up her brave-front smile. She loops her arm through his and leads him over to the bar. Drags him, really – there's a strength in those arms of hers that surprises him. She gives the tavern master an unsubtle wave and a two-fingered gesture, and within moments there are tumblers in their hands and they are raising them in honour of his dearly departed mother.

The rotgut whiskey burns his throat and coils in his stomach like a thing alive. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and notices Isabela surveying him over her empty glass. Her lips curl into a frown, and it's then that she tells the tavern master that he'd better just leave them with the bottle.

"A lot on your mind, pet?"

"I am buried beneath the weight of my burdens," Carver says, trying to make light, but he is hard pressed to even manage a smile. He does not want to talk about himself, not to this woman who can read men as easily as others might read their letters. He has always worn his flaws and fears so openly, and now he has so much to hide.

And so he changes the subject, as cowards are wont to do. "It's quiet tonight. Where is everyone?"

"Snowbound, I'd imagine," she says as she lounges against the bar. Her arms are folded before her and she stretches like a cat, arching her back. Carver's eye catches the curve of her backside and lingers there without shame. She's not watching him, but he knows she's paying attention. She always has. "And what about you, Carver?" she asks with a sidelong glance toward him. He cannot ignore the wicked gleam in her eye. "Why did you stumble all the way down here when the Blooming Rose is practically on your doorstep? You could have broken your neck and no one would have found you until spring. Those stairs can be treacherous."

He takes a moment to refill their glasses. "Perhaps I'm looking for better company than the Rose can afford me," he says. He downs his drink as she laughs heartily at him.

"I would think it's the other way around." She grins cheekily around her glass. "I don't suppose being a Grey Warden pays very well. But this isn't about the coin, is it?"

He looks down at his empty glass, and shakes his head.

Isabela sighs. "Then why are you here, Carver? You should be up at the house with your sister. It's why you came back to this cursed place, isn't it?" She takes up the bottle and pours him another drink, despite not having finished the one he'd poured for her. He knows she's trying to loosen his tongue, but he takes the drink anyway.

He'll come to regret it later, but in that moment, he has not a clue of what the night has in store for him – the lengths to which Fate is willing to go to get its way.

"I couldn't bear to be in that house another minute," he mutters into his glass before taking a deep swallow. This time, he scarcely cringes. His tongue is almost numb, his throat much more so. He grits his teeth as the warm whiskey hits his empty stomach. "My sister is the most impossibly stubborn creature I've ever met. And I fight darkspawn for a living."

"I'm almost certain I've heard her make the same complaint about you. No wonder you two were always at each other's throats."

Carver rolls his eyes, if only for an excuse to look away, but Isabela is having none of his reticence.

"Far be it from me to get involved in someone else's family affairs," she cajoles him, "but I hope you're taking it easy on her, Carver, I really do. After everything that's happened..."

"Everything that shouldn't have happened," he says darkly. He puts down his glass so he, too, can lean on the bar, grasp the edge in his hands and brace his arms to hold his weight. He is mildly surprised the wood doesn't splinter under the force of his grip. "If it wasn't for her, then–" He struggles to put his thoughts to voice, but Isabela turns to him, her eyes hard.

"Is that what you think? That your mother's death is her fault?" When he doesn't answer, she shakes her head in disbelief. "Carver, what do you know about what happened? Honestly, have you even _talked_ to Hawke about it?"

"I know enough," he snaps, reminding himself so much of the boy he used to be that he is immediately ashamed of himself.

"Then you know nothing," Isabela tells him. She heaves a much put-upon sigh before reaching over to place her hand over his. He cannot bring himself to look at her, instead looking down at her hand, her dark, calloused fingers covering his. There is solace in their warmth, their strength. "Why did you come all this way, then, if not to confront Hawke? Why are you hiding all the way down here, talking to me?"

Carver finds he cannot answer her, that his mouth is full of words he cannot speak. Yes, he came to confront her, but when the time came, he found he could not stomach the truth, no matter how willingly his mourning sister would lay it at his feet. The years have changed him and the envy he always carried in his heart has fractured, and the broken pieces of what he used to be are coming together in a way that is altogether disgraceful and surreal. He has taken his sister in his arms, himself so full of desire that he's growing frightened of the creature he's becoming, and so he hides, for cowardice is more comforting a lie than the terrible truth of the sin he has committed.

Isabela, however, knows none of this, and in that moment, he envies her ignorance. He finally musters the courage to look up at her, and watches as she fills their glasses one last time.

"One for the road," she says, lifting her glass to him. His arm feels leaden as he does the same. "You know we're counting on you to bring her 'round, Carver, don't you? You're our last hope. You might not miss her, but we do."

Carver grimaces and coughs as the last of the whiskey goes down roughly. Isabela gives him one last self-satisfied smirk as he turns to leave, but as he does, one final question crosses his mind.

"Why do you care about her so much?"

Isabela looks surprised by his interest, and her cheeks flush as if she's been caught misbehaving. He thinks for a moment she's going to brush him off; he knows she's not one for sentimentality. But then she shakes her head, and says in the strangest soft voice, "Because she's been a good friend to me, though Andraste knows I don't deserve it. I thought you of all people would know that."

Carver cannot think of a response to this, but Isabela does not seem to be expecting one, regardless. She flags over the barkeep and the two of them put their heads together over the counter, and just like that, he is forgotten. It is probably better that way. He dare not trust himself to speak anymore.

And so it's with a heavy heart, and his mind full of chaos and despair, Carver makes his way through the snowy streets of Lowtown.

He's ready to face his sister and get his answers.

He's ready to go home.


	13. Chapter 13

**XIII.**

When Carver returns to the Hightown estate, Bodahn is waiting up for him.

"Welcome home, messere," the dwarf greets him as he takes his cloak and gloves. "The lady of the house will be happy you've returned. She was beside herself when you left." His tone is thick with disapproval.

"Was she?" Carver muses, ignoring the steward's reproachful looks. Instead, he takes a perverse sort of pleasure in knowing that he'd tied his sister into knots. He cranes his neck to look into the parlour, but it's empty, the gallery above hidden in deepest shadow. "Where is she now?"

"Gone to bed, the poor dear."

Carver does his best not to snort his contempt when the dwarf seems to believe in his sister so, but the thought of Marian being anyone's _poor dear_ has his stomach twisting with annoyance. He keeps his mouth shut; after all, he did not come to Kirkwall to poison anyone against his sister. They do not know what he knows, and he has not the words to convince them. In the eyes of everyone who knows her, she is a hero, selfless and true. Only he remembers her as she was, the little girl with the heart two sizes too large, the little girl with the mouth too smart for her own good. Always in trouble, always getting _him_ into trouble, dragged along because it was his duty, dragged along because he had no choice. Even then, inseparable. Even then, loyal unto the end.

The years apart have broken them. The years apart have changed all the rules.

"Now, if there is nothing else, messere, my boy and I will retire for the evening."

Carver gives the steward a stiff nod, finding within himself a steady voice that would have done his mother proud. "Thank you, Bodahn, that will be all. Goodnight."

He listens as the steward's footsteps fade away until even their echoes have died, swallowed by the oppressive quiet of the estate. For a moment, he stands in the stillness of the entrance hall, the whole of the house bearing down on him. It takes a great deal of goading to get himself moving again, and in the end, he doesn't go far. He closes himself up in the library, wanting nothing more than to shut out his sister, her failures, and the whole damned world while he's at it. He cannot bear to think of her now, curled on that bed of shame and sin, surrounded by darkness and demons and dreams.

Agitated, Carver pours himself a drink; the bitter cold of the walk home did too much to sober him up, and he finds he cannot face the night so unguarded against what haunts him. The chair he'd pulled forward still rests before the fire, and he sits down heavily. He hunches over, elbows resting on the tops of his legs, his glass cradled in his big hands as he stares into the fire, and he does not look away, until his eyes are burning like so much dry tinder and his vision is full of dancing sparks.

His mind is in turmoil, a raging storm that brings devastation to everything it touches upon. Nothing is safe from the ravages of his dark thoughts. All these years, the places his fate has carried him to, the faces of those who've crossed his path, the loved and the lost and the left behind. Yet over and over again, it comes back around to _this_ moment, this fire and this glass of whiskey, this cold night devoid of stars. His dead mother, betrayed by the home she'd returned to. His twin sister, left to rot in a wayfarer's grave, no flowers to spring from the ashen ground to mark her passing. His older sister, damned by the Maker to lose everything and everyone as she chased after the whispers of a witch's prophecy.

Once, he'd thought to die for the madness of his sister's ambition, but she had not allowed it of him. Even as he'd lay dying, she could not grant him the dignity of his choice. She'd moved Heaven and earth to save him. She'd given him over to Death itself, and he would pledge his sword to the cause of his salvation. Now he lives on borrowed time, while she sacrifices on, regardless of those who are lost in her wake.

The night slips away like sand through his fingers as he sits, and drinks, and broods. The fire burns low, and the room grows chill, but he does not move except to refill his glass from the bottle he keeps close at hand. Fatigue settles into his bones, and his dark thoughts soften with it, until he is left cloaked in a dim, bitter haze of his own resentment and fear. He is not warmed by it; the taint leaves him always cold.

He does not know what stirs him to movement, but his legs ache as he stands, and his neck is stiff. The glass in his hand is empty, and as he looks down at the dregs of amber whiskey clinging to the bottom, he realizes he is torn between refilling it and throwing the damn thing into the fire. It's an odd impulse, the sudden desire for such trivial destruction. When he thinks back on it, he'll find it strange that such an insignificant moment set his feet on a path that would change everything – yet when he looks a little closer, he'll realize that Fate had put him on that path long before that night. Perhaps he'd been heading to such an end the whole of his life.

Shaking his head at himself, and deciding that it's long past time he went to bed, Carver returns the glass and bottle to the desk – and there, amidst the forgotten papers and scattered quills, he finds a single iron key threaded on a green ribbon. It seems so out of place that for a moment he can only stare at it, amazed that his sister could be so careless. And then, as if his mind had been made up long before he found it, he takes the key, and closes it fast in his fist. He takes only a moment to light a candle before he leaves the library.

He makes no attempt to be quiet as he moves through the darkened estate, but his sobriety is not so far gone that navigation is difficult. He does not stumble as he takes the stairs two at a time, such is his eagerness to prove to himself that his sister is not so selfish as he believed. And when he finds himself before the door of the room that had once belonged to his mother, he takes a deep breath and leans his forehead against the cold, polished wood. The moment is so reminiscent of the night before that his courage flees from him, as the knowledge descends stark upon him that were he to knock upon this door, there would be no one on the other side to allow him entry. He almost turns away.

Instead –

Instead, he takes a deep breath to steel himself against such weakness, the urge to run and never look back. Instead, he puts the key in the lock. The turning of the tumblers seems almost thunderous in the dead silence of the house – or perhaps it is the pounding of his heart that seems so deafening. He turns the handle and pushes the door open.

It's the absolute darkness that strikes him first, and then the rush of cold that hits him hard, as if he'd walked into a wall instead of an empty room. As he holds aloft the silver candlestick, shadows jump along the wall like shades. He tries to shake the eerie image from his head as he steps further into the room, looking for more candles to light before his eyes can play more tricks on him and send him running with his tail between his legs. He wants to build a fire in the hearth, but he dares not break the spell of this place. He is not supposed to be here, and he cannot bring himself to announce his intrusion so deliberately.

It is only a matter of time before he is discovered, though by living or dead, he cannot fathom a guess.

He finds a candle tree on his mother's vanity, and another on the mantel, and soon the most threatening of the shadows have been banished to the corners of the room, where they linger like cobwebs, ready to snare the unwary. The glow from the candles is soft, opening the room like an invitation, but he's still shivering as he wanders the room in a slow circle, drinking in the memory of his mother's last day breathing.

Her room has become a tomb, untouched and revered. Everything is covered in dust, a testament to how long it's been since the door was last opened. He runs a sorrow-heavy hand along the marble vanity top, stirring up a fine cloud of neglect. He takes stock of the trappings of his mother's life here, the silver-handled hairbrush and matching hand mirror, bottles of perfume, crystal jars of ointments and powders all scattered like an alchemist's table. When he dares a glance into the looking glass hung over the vanity, he scarcely recognizes himself as the slow realization dawns on him that the last face the glass reflected was his mother's as she'd prepared herself for the day she would die.

He picks up a pair of white silk gloves and runs them over his hands, feeling the fabric catch and scrape along his rough, calloused skin. His mother had never owned anything so fine during his childhood, but he remembers the stories she'd told of her life in Kirkwall, the drinking, the dancing, the endless spectacle of beautiful things and beautiful people. He remembers the sadness in her voice ever at odds with the light in her eyes as she'd spoken of the love that had transcended such trinkets and trivialities.

He can see it so clearly through the filter of gentle candlelight, his twin at his mother's feet, eyes wide with rapt attention, Marian by the fire, trying her best to look bored and uninterested as she hung on every word. He remembers watching from his place by the window as his father would come to sweep his mother off her feet, and bring the smile to her face that only he could put there. It was a smile that he'd taken with him when he died. Carver wonders if silk gloves and silver mirrors had been enough to put a new sort of smile in his mother's eyes, but as he carefully replaces the gloves, he realizes he does not want to know.

It's then that his time is up. The door closes, shattering the spell of lonely quiet. He turns to see his sister, and for a moment he thinks her a ghost, a ghost in a white nightdress, a ghost from his childhood he will never be able to banish or escape. Her face is a mask of fury, and there is more life and colour in her now than he's seen since he arrived, and he welcomes the difference even though he knows her anger is all for him. Let her be angry, he has always known how to deflect her righteous indignation. He would not be her brother, otherwise.

"I thought you were asleep," he says, looking down once more at the cluttered vanity, if only to save himself the effort of bearing her disdain.

"How did you – no, you _can't_ be in here."

"I think you'll find that I can." He pulls the key from his pocket, holding the green ribbon between two fingers to show her. "You left this on your desk in the library."

She advances on him, snatching the key away from him. She holds it out in her open palm a moment, staring at it as if it is the source of some cruel trick, before she closes her fist around it, just as he had – only her knuckles go so white, he wonders if he might see blood spill from between her fingers.

"I told you to stay out of here," she says, her voice lowering with a degree of finality he supposes is meant to put him in his place. Sometimes, he thinks she forgets who she's dealing with.

"Are you trying to frighten me?"

She sighs, rolling her eyes as she looks away.

"What exactly are you trying to keep me from, Mari?"

"It's not you I was trying to keep from this," she says, and even before her voice breaks, he can hear the tears coming, and he wonders just when it was that his indomitable sister became so fragile. Maker forgive him, but in the face of such foolishness as a locked door and a room full of dusty things, he cannot bring himself to care for such fledgling sensibilities.

"Marian, you need to stop," he says firmly, almost cruelly, as he puts his hands on her arms. He expects to find her trembling, but she's steady as an oak. She looks up at him defiantly, even as her eyes shine with tears in the candlelight. "Mother is gone."

"So were you, Carver," she snaps, and the key falls to the floor as she pushes against his chest. But he is bigger than she is, his will stronger, and he won't be moved. "You were gone and I did all I could but it wasn't enough. I killed everyone and everything that stood between us but it wasn't enough. She died in my arms, Carver! She was bloody and torn up and she died in my arms and all I could think about was _you_. Where were you?"

She is crying now, silent tears slipping down her cheeks, but her voice is strong and there is ardent fire in her eyes. He stares down at her, refusing to believe that she would hold him accountable when she had chosen the path he has been forced to walk these years since last he saw her. But he recognizes the pain and the shame he sees in her eyes, because it is the very same he sees when he looks in the mirror, when he cannot bring himself meet his own eyes because he is weak and his regrets are too great.

"I needed you," she whispers. "Why didn't you come?"

There is nothing he can say, and the weight of that terrible truth descends heavily on his shoulders. His hands tighten on her arms as he lets his head fall, resting his forehead against hers. Her palms are still pressed flat against his chest, but soon come to curl in the fabric of his shirtfront, pulling herself closer.

When she lifts her chin, he knows they are doomed. She is no longer crying, but her lingering tears wet his face as her nose brushes against his. She tastes of salt and sorrow when her mouth finds his, that same tender kiss she'd given him when she'd woken in his bed that morning.

It is all he can do to stop himself from claiming her mouth as he wants to, to keep from wrapping his arms like a vice around her so she cannot pull away. His body shakes with the effort. But when she kisses him again, her mouth opening beneath his, her tongue brushing along his lower lip, he is lost. He lets go his iron grip on her arms to slide his own around her, his big hands splaying against the small of her back as he turns her to press her against the vanity.

She gives a broken moan beneath him as he kisses her firmly, almost wildly, abandoning all reason as he moves his hands to her hips, and the fabric of her nightdress bunches beneath his grasp in his effort to pull her closer. His desire burns like veilfire, coursing through his veins until his very soul is aflame with the sin of wanting her. Even in that moment, he knows there is no stopping. There will be no turning back. His only consolation, a slim reassurance of sense in the daze of heat and heartbreak, is that twice now, she is the one who kissed him first. Right or wrong, she wants this as he does.

The vanity shakes as he lifts her to sit atop it, and it is a difficult thing to pull himself away long enough to extinguish the candles before they topple. They are both breathing fast now, their hearts pounding, their skin flushed and hot. Her knees open for him and he settles between them, pushing her nightdress up as his fingers run heavily up her thighs.

It's then that he catches sight of them in the mirror, and he is flooded with a shame that overcomes the thundering of his heart. Marian's head is tipped back, her long dark hair spilling over a bare shoulder, the neckline of her nightdress fallen, ever in betrayal of her modesty. He watches as her lips find his jaw, and he groans as he closes his eyes against the reflection.

"Not here," he manages to say against her temple, his voice thick, barely his own. "We can't – not here."

When he opens his eyes, she's looking up at him, her eyes dark and solemn. Her face softens with understanding, and wordlessly, she nods. She slips down off the vanity, and when she does, she brushes against the front of his trousers, the evidence of his arousal hard and aching at the slightest touch. She glances up at him, her expression conflicted, and all he can do is to take her hand in his, the simplest sign of reassurance he can think of through the haze of the tempest building inside of him.

It isn't much, not really, but somehow, mercifully, it is enough. Her fingers entwine with his and she leads him from the room, leaving the key where it had fallen on the carpet, and when she closes the door, she does not lock it behind them.


	14. Chapter 14

**XIV.**

He follows her into darkness.

The estate itself is a shadow now. As she leads him down one corridor, and then another, he thinks he can see the house as the ruin it once was, the way they had found it years ago, prodigal progeny returned to claim the birthright Fate had deemed them worthy of taking by force. When he closes his eyes, all he can see are the blood and bones, spilled and broken, all that had to be done to lay their hands on such glory.

How would things have been different, he wonders, if the taint had not taken everything from him.

Marian opens the door to his room and disappears into the blackness within. And, Maker forgive him, he hurries in after her.

These borrowed rooms of his are dark and cold. The elven girl had been in while he was away, but the fire she'd built has burned away to naught but ashes and embers, all its warmth given up to a night that would leave it lonely and bitterly cold. Carver begins to mumble some half-hearted excuse and makes for the fireplace, but he is too slow. Marian kneels at the hearth and stacks the grate anew; she gives an almost lazy wave of her hand, and flames burst to life in the grate, swallowing the logs whole as if it had been burning for hours. She looks over her shoulder at him, and her eyes are alive with light, but even that cannot disguise the pain and worry there.

Carver locks the door.

She reaches out for him. He is across the room in a few long strides, and in her arms before she is in his, a slender embrace that aches of the distance they cannot help but hold between them. Not for the first time, he marvels at how he towers over her, his wilful, spiteful, indomitable sister, she who retreats from no one. He takes her face in his big hands, her dark hair spilling through his fingers, and as he leans down to kiss her, she presses up on her toes; somewhere in the middle of that distance they meet, and the touch of their lips is a frenzy.

She is trembling when his hand finds the ribbon that laces through the front of her nightdress to hold it together. Truly a fragile thing to armour herself in, he thinks, as his clumsy fingers pull at those bits of silk until it comes loose. He runs his hands over her shoulders, pushing the gown as he goes, the lace gathering and snagging along his callouses like burrs. When it falls, it is in one smooth motion, pooling at her feet like water, and all at once, she is naked in his arms.

He runs his hands down the expanse of her back, feeling her ribs beneath his fingertips, the shallowness of her breathing. Her hands are on the back of his neck, tangled in his hair, pulling, a breath away from painful. He curls an arm around her waist her to anchor to him, and when he ducks his head to kiss her again, her teeth graze his lower lip, pulling at it, and he groans into her mouth.

He can feel the heat of the fire on his back as he tugs at the fastenings of his shirt. His focus starts slipping as a familiar ache begins rising between his legs. The world narrows until all he knows is the warmth of her body pressed into him, the sound of their heavy breathing mingling with the crackling of the fire, the urgency of her fingers over his as she helps him with his belts. It is no slow build, but a rush that overtakes them both, and the moment his buckles and fastenings are undone, he pulls himself free of the burden. Her greedy hands are on him in an instant, nails dragging over skin that prickles beneath her touch, down his chest and over the ridges of his ribs, sweeping over his abdomen and lower.

He's balancing upon the brink of madness now, his mind full of echoes and cobwebs instead of rational thought. He leans down to kiss her again, but she hesitates. Her eyes follow the trail her fingertips made, widening as they see for the first time what these years of hard living have done to him, the scars that mark him as a warrior and a Warden. Marian brushes her thumb over his side; he does not have to look to know what she sees. It is a jagged line, mottled and grey and poorly healed, the webbing of veins around it forever blackened where the taint touched him.

There are tears in her eyes as she looks up at him, but he will not have her crying over him. He'd be dead if not for her. And with this bone-deep knowledge strengthening him to his core, Carver cradles her face in his hands and kisses her with all the gratitude and devotion he has always owed to her, this woman who is one third of the whole he will never be again, until they are both breathless and shaking.

He cannot keep his hands from her now, and he will not stop until he knows all of her, the roundness of her shoulders, the curve of her breasts, nipples as pink and soft as petals in spring. He runs his hands down over her hips to the swell of her buttocks, pressing her firmly into that ache that pulses with desire for her. His fingernails dig into the tender fullness of her thighs as he lifts her against him. She opens her knees to him, and he can feel the very heat of her against his stomach as he carries her to the bed.

He sits upon the edge of the mattress, the quilted satin of the coverlet cool and slippery beneath the hand he uses to steady himself. Marian is over him now, her breath coming in short, fluttery bursts, sweet lips parted and waiting for him. He cannot leave her wanting, not then, and he pulls her to him, wrapping his arms around her back and crushing her against his chest as he kisses her hard, the sudden urge to devour her whole taking over him. She moans, and that soft slip of desire escaping her lips into his mouth nearly drives him to the madness he is scarcely holding at bay.

Her hands are eager, insistent as they reach between them to pull at the front of his trousers. She breaks away from his kiss, leaning back to untangle the laces and fold back the panels, and he shudders as her clever fingers find their way inside to caress the length of him. She looks up at him, her eyes piercing his. She bites her lip, and Carver realizes that they've not said a word since closing the door behind them, as if they have woven a spell of silence to cloak themselves in, to hide from the rest of the world.

There is nothing he can say, and even if there was, he cannot bring himself to break the spell, cannot invite reality to come crashing down on their heads, the weight of their sin and shame brought to bear. When he kisses her again, it is urgent, impatient, and merciless.

He slips a hand between her legs to find her slick with want. Marian gasps at the touch, her hips pressing into his hand, and his fingers slide deeper between her folds. He lets his head fall, leaning his forehead against her chest, his nose nuzzled in the valley between her breasts. His breath is coming faster now, and he is dizzy with his urge to have her, the room spinning as he clings to her, the only anchor he knows.

He lifts his head, and kisses her neck just below her ear where her pulse beats strong and quick. He leaves his lips to rest there, swallowing hard. His throat tightens as he takes his cock in hand, stroking himself with fingers that are coated with her wetness to ease his path, and he finds he cannot wait a moment longer. He guides himself to the centre of her unbearable heat, and, his arm firm around her waist, pulls her hips down until he is buried deep inside.

He is not gentle with her, not this first time as he takes that which he was never meant to have. Her hands grip his shoulders ten fingernails deep as he fills his hands with the flesh of her hips to drive her against him. There is no pleasure in this, he finds, only madness and lust, and a twisted sense of completion, of broken pieces falling into place to form a new pattern of coherence. She rocks against his thrusts, and the warmth from the fireplace pales in comparison to the heat inside of her, and he is seared by her sinful embrace.

Her head falls back, and his teeth find the soft skin of her throat. She cries out, arching into him, her breasts pressing against his chest. His heart hammers inside of him until he fears it might break his ribs to escape the cage of them, that it might burst with the fierceness of love and loyalty he feels for the woman in his arms, she whom cruel Fate chose to give him as blood.

His pace quickens, and he drives her harder, relentless and demanding, until at last he breaks, his release torn from him, his eyes burning with the white-hot fury of it, a power unlike anything he has ever known. All at once, the world settles into stillness, and Carver is left gasping and weak, barely able to move for the terrible pounding of his heart.

He does not know how long they stay like that, but when she finally shifts against him, he is brought back to the here and now of what he has done. His cock is still half-erect when it slips from inside her as she pushes herself from his lap and he is forced to let her go. He falls back into his elbows, still breathing fast, and watches her through hooded eyes as she crosses the room to the wash basin. He knows he should look away as she washes herself, but he cannot stop staring, his eyes greedily drinking in the sight of her bending over to clean his mess from the inside of her thighs.

He sits up as she brings the cloth to him, but she refuses to meet his eyes as he takes it from her. Sighing, he wraps his arms around her waist so she cannot turn away, and presses his forehead to the soft flesh of her belly.

She is one third of himself, part of a ruined whole. He wonders if they will ever mend themselves, if they will ever find a way to be the half the other needs to find redemption and grace. He hopes – _wants_ to hope, but he does not know what will become of them, not after this, this moment of hard-fought truth that has changed the way the world turns around him. He worries that he does not know how to hope, that perhaps that part of him is as broken as the rest of him.

"Mari," he says, finally breaking their self-imposed silence, his voice hoarse and thick enough to choke on. He can feel her hesitation, but after a moment, she sinks to her knees and twines her arms around his legs, her head in his lap. He leans over to cover her with his chest, resting his cheek against her spine, and he closes his eyes as she begins to shake.

It is only another moment more before Carver realizes she is quietly weeping, and there is not a thing he can do to comfort her. He can only hold her, and thank the Maker that his face is hidden from her, because he does not think he could bear the shame of allowing her to see his tears, even as they fall upon her naked skin and glisten in the firelight.


End file.
